SVN stat + externals = visual horror

The student robotics firmwares pull in a library, Rob has implemented this wizzardy with svn externals. Whilst I enjoy the idea, I find the modified output of svn stat quite hard to scan quickly and therefore hard to read:

X      lib-fw/flash430/trunk/types
X      motor/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      motor/firmware/trunk/types
?      pwm/svn-stat-dump
?      pwm/svn-stat-dumppy
X      pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      pwm/firmware/trunk/types
M      pwm/firmware/trunk/main.c
X      jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      jointio/firmware/trunk/types
?      power/pcb/trunk/gerbers/power-bstop.gbr
?      power/pcb/trunk/gerbers/power-tstop.gbr
X      power/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      power/firmware/trunk/types

Performing status on external item at ‘motor/firmware/trunk/flash430′
X      motor/firmware/trunk/flash430/types

Performing status on external item at ‘motor/firmware/trunk/flash430/types’

Performing status on external item at ‘motor/firmware/trunk/types’

Performing status on external item at ‘pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430′
X      pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430/types

Performing status on external item at ‘pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430/types’

Performing status on external item at ‘pwm/firmware/trunk/types’

Performing status on external item at ‘lib-fw/flash430/trunk/types’

Performing status on external item at ‘jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430′
X      jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430/types

Performing status on external item at ‘jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430/types’

…

Each external adds at least two lines, three if modified. So five minutes produced this

usage is:  svn stat | pystat.py, I think I will add an alias as I use it quite a bit.

giving a cleaner output (the white space is a bit mangled by wordpress! X,M,? etc should all line up, I should probably find a way to fix this):

X      lib-fw/flash430/trunk/types
X      motor/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      motor/firmware/trunk/types
?      pwm/svn-stat-dump
?      pwm/svn-stat-dumppy
X      pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      pwm/firmware/trunk/types
M      pwm/firmware/trunk/main.c
X      jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      jointio/firmware/trunk/types
?      power/pcb/trunk/gerbers/power-bstop.gbr
?      power/pcb/trunk/gerbers/power-tstop.gbr
X      power/firmware/trunk/flash430
X      power/firmware/trunk/types
ext  X      motor/firmware/trunk/flash430/types
ext  X      pwm/firmware/trunk/flash430/types
ext  X      jointio/firmware/trunk/flash430/types
ext  X      power/firmware/trunk/flash430/types

This was also one of those things Ive been thinking about for ages, but unwilling to commit the time for such a minor irritant. Once I eventually broke, I decided to time the implementation, it really was sub 5 min including (swift) testing! So yes it was definitely worth it for reduced groan!

Forgetfull command line

Problem:
I am lucky to work with a few people who’s knowledge of computing is vast. I am always learning new things one can do at the command line. Unfortunately once typed, their details have instantly left my mind. This is a source of great frustration both for me and them. It is not feasible to make notes on what worked and why at the time. When I next want to do it, guaranteed its not in my bash history.

Solution:
I have knocked up this python script that allows me to log the last command with and optional comment in a separate file to my history so that i can review the dust after it has settled:

pyhs:

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys

argc = len(sys.argv)

if not((argc == 2 ) or (argc == 3)):
print “usage is: history 2 | hs logfile “
sys.exit()

if argc == 3:
comment = ” #”+sys.argv[2]+’\n’
else:
comment=’\n’

l = sys.stdin.readline()
f = open(sys.argv[1],’a')
command = l.split(None,1)[1] # remove line number
command = command.rstrip(‘\n’) # remove trailing newline
f.writelines(command+comment)
f.close()

To use it, it is placed in my path ~/bin/pyhs
then in my .bashrc file the entry:

hs () { history 2 | pyhs ~/command_logs/rob “‘$1′” ;}

note the double-single….single-double quotes, these fix the argument passing….sort of . The inner quotes get passed maby someday ill fix this, but I doubt it.

Ps: Useage:

% cd spam
% ls
# ask somone a question
# get answer and try it
% mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON meat_db.* TO ‘lambchop@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘ilikemooo’
#instantly forget the command – but its ok you can log it for later
% hs ‘how to changes the privaledges on the database’

Recursive cd ..

There are several projects i am currently working on that have deep directory trees. For example:

/home/tom/project/sr/svn.studentrobotics.org/slug/init-br/build_armeb/staging_dir/armeb-linux-uclibc/include/linux/spi

Ive found my self getting increasingly irritated by having to type variations on :

cd ../../../../..

So set about writing an alias to simplify this. After a little investigation, I discovered Bash functions and came up with this:

xs () { if [[ -z "${1}" ]]; then  cd ..; elif [ ! $(echo "$1" | grep -E "^[0-9]+$”) ]; then  echo ARG1 NAN; else for ((i=0;i<=$1 ;i+=1)); do  cd ..; done; fi }

By adding this line to your .bashrc file (or similar) the command xs (note its next to cd) allows one to travel up the directory tree, examples:

xs 5       -> cd ../../../../..

xs 2       -> cd ../..

xs         -> cd ..

Hope this is usefull to someone.

Easy Fedora Upgrade

For a long time i have had a phobia of updating and upgrading my operating system. I guess this is a hangover from the bad old days of windows where the customary 6 month total re-install was as fun as tooth extraction, and usually required just before a large deadline. I have two significant influences on the subject. Jeff appears to hold a similar view of the situation, with good reasoning – Computers are boring, why would you want to spend all your time admin-ing them when you could be building something. Rob, however, is constantly beating us to update and upgrade.

I decided I should upgrade my laptop before 25c3 next week , and so bit the proverbial bullet. After reading many posts and pages and how-to’s all prescribing different techniques, I discovered its actually very easy and quite painless.

So in summary:

su -

yum -y update

yum clean all

preupgrade # If you don’t all-ready have this, yum install preupgrade

Thats it, 4 lines, it takes about 5 min of actual time and then a few hours of downloading and crunching. I was able to keep working for the first few hours until reboot time (It asks politely). Then it crunches a while longer during the next boot (another hourish).

This worked on F9 and is currently crunching on F8

First steps

The cnc machine took its first steps today, well a motor waggled about under the power of emc running on linux.

Hopefully I can integrate everything and get a build of emc on something less crucial than my server and maby some opto isolation when i get back from france.