---
name: "cvsreport"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "cvsreport"
version: "0.3.5.cvs.20050222-3"
release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/cvsreport"
---

# cvsreport(1)

generate CVS activity reports

## NAME

cvsreport - generate CVS activity reports

## SYNOPSIS

**cvsreport \[options\]**

## DESCRIPTION

**cvsreport** can extract *changesets* from a CVS repository history, then format it in plain text or HTML, and finally store it and/or send it via mail. A *changeset* is a set of commit operations (addition, removal, modification) which happen along a single invocation of the **cvs commit** command. Used from client side, it produces a report starting from an arbitrary date from a simple working copy. On the server side, it can automatically generate reports and mail them upon commit.

**cvsreport** will read configuration settings first, then fetch the history info from the CVS repository, and run the user commands. Reports can be customized via a simple configuration file. Commands let you store or mail any number of reports to any number of targets. As a default (ie. no options and no command), **cvsreport** will generate an automatic text report on standard output (see **COMMANDS**).

## EXAMPLES

- cvsreport -a -d/var/cvsroot -f now-1month -n10

  Report at most ten changesets from anyone which happened a month ago on the local repository */var/cvsroot*, send result as plain text on standard output.

- cvsreport -d/var/cvsroot -f '2003-05-25 16:00 UTC' -e 'file text report.txt \>\>log.txt'

  Send all changesets commited by the current user on the local repository */var/cvsroot*, starting from May, 25th 2003 at 16:00 Universal Time (GMT). A plain text output is written to *report.txt* and appended to *log.txt*.

- cvsreport -a -dproject.com:/cvsroot -f now-3week-2day-1hour -e 'mail text+html foo@project.com bar@project.com'

  Send a multipart message to *cvs@project.com* embedding both default text and HTML outputs. It contains events from all users which happened on the remote repository *project.com:/cvsroot*, starting from 3 weeks, 2 days and 1 hour ago.

- cvsreport -a -dproject.com:/cvsroot -f now-1week -e 'set myhtml {footer=; encoding=UTF-8} file myhtml -'

  Collect all commit events from the past week, and reports them as UTF-8 encoded HTML thru standard output. Also remove the default footer which advertises cvsreport.

## AUTOMATIC MAIL ON COMMITS

If you don't specify the **-f** option, **cvsreport** notes its startup time, waits for its caller's termination, then report on any commit events which occured in between. Add this line to **CVSROOT/commitinfo** (via CVS!) in the repository you want to watch :

```
    ALL         cvsreport -e 'mail text developers@project.com commit@project.com' %s
```

Please see also the mail command configuration in the **CONFIGURATION** section.

## OPTIONS

- **-a, --all**

  Report commit events from all users. As a default, only report events belonging to the current user.

- **-c, --config *config-file***

  Load a user configuration file (see **CONFIGURATION**). It is loaded after the global configuration file (see also **-l**). You can use this option several times to load multiple scripts. See also **-e**.

- **-d, --cvsroot *cvsroot***

  Set the repository root address, works as its [**cvs**(1)](/cvs/1.md) counterpart.

  When **cvsreport** is run from a working copy, the content of *CVS/Root* is read first, and overriden with this option if present. When run outside from a working copy, **cvsreport** will use the value of the **CVSROOT** environment variable, then override it if this option is present.

- **-D, --debug**

  Output verbose activity information on stderr. If **cvsreport** detaches itself from the current tty, the output is then appended to */tmp/cvsreport.log*.

- **-e, --execute *command***

  Execute a *command* set and/or configuration instructions. The syntax of the execute argument is the same as described in **CONFIGURATION** and **COMMANDS**.

- **-f, --from *date***

  Start fetching changesets from the given *date*. The date format is the versatile one from [**cvs**(1)](/cvs/1.md).

- **-h, --help**

  Display a summary of available options and commands.

- **-l, --local**

  Ignore the global configuration file.

- **-n, --number *n***

  Parse at most *n* changesets. When this option is not present, there is no limit.

- **-v, --version**

  Display the version and copyright info.

## COMMANDS

- **file *set* \[\>\>\]*file* ...**

  Write the report configured by *set* into the listed files. If \`*\>\>*' is prepended to the file name, the report is appended to the existing file. The special file name '**-**' represents standard output.

- **mail *set1*\[+*set2*\] *address* ...**

  Sends a report to the list of addresses. It is possible to send an alternative multipart message : both text and HTML versions are sent, and the content selection is done on the mail client according to its own preferences.

  The mail command relies on an external mailing program. It can be configured via the *mail* configuration set.

- **my *variable* = *value* ...**

  Define a user variable, which can be then referred with  **$(name)** later. See **CONFIGURATION** for a list of default variables.

- **run *command* \[*args*\] ...**

  Run a user command with its argument. It is only called if there is at least one commit event reported, and it is called no more than once per report. It can be useful to run a single command per changeset from a CVS repository, instead of the default CVS recursive filter invocation (one call for every modified folder).

- **test**

  This dummy command forces cvsreport to retrieve the CVS history even if there's no effective command to execute afterwards. Useful for diagnosis with **--debug**.

## CONFIGURATION

A configuration script defines so-called *sets* which are a simple collection of key/value pairs, and can also include a list of commands executed at load time. Here are the startup defaults written as a configuration script :

```
    # Default text set
    set text {
      format   = text
      encoding = iso-8859-1
    }
    # Default HTML set
    set html {
      format       = html
      encoding     = iso-8859-1
      title        = message
      footer       = Generated by cvsreport $(version)
      cgi_links    = no
      cgi_urlbase  = please_set_cgi_urlbase
      cgi_download = no
    }
    # Defaults for the mail command
    set mail {
      command  = internal
      subject  = message
      from     =
      reply-to =
    }
```

The syntax does not require whitespaces, they are only recommended for clarity. The statement separator can be either a newline or a semi-colon. Comments are not allowed after a statement, they are only accepted on their own line.

Variables, denotated by the **$(name)** syntax, are substituted with their value at load time. cvsreport automatically defines some variables :

- *version*

  The current cvsreport version

- *localtime*

  The current time, expressed in the host time zone.

- *gmtime*

  The current time in GMT (or UTC).

- *sfproject*

  The project name when hosted on a SourceForge-based site. It is extracted from the parent folder of the CVSROOT.

Every *set* can be used to describe a report or configure a command.

The **text** set is the default text mode report. To create your own text report, declare a set whose *format* field is set to **text**. It will automatically inherit the values from the default text set.

Similarly, **html** is the default set for HTML based reports. If you create a set with a *format* field set to **html**, it will inherit the default values from the default HTML text set.

These fields are common to both text and HTML reports :

- *encoding*

  Defines the document character set. Note that it is currently only used for the HTML document charset and the mail encoding header, no special conversion or character handling is actually done.

- *diff*

  Selects some files whose difference has to be included in the report. Expects a comma separated list of regular expressions. These regexes are matched against the files full path (module/path/file).

The following fields are specific to the text report :

- *diff\_format*

  Can be set to either *unified* or *context*. If unset, uses the local user CVS settings or global defaults.

The following fields are specific to the HTML report :

- *title*

  Set the page title (not displayed in document body). If set to **message**, automatically extracts the first line of the first changeset log message.

- *footer*

  Set the page footer text. As a default, advertise cvsreport with a simple link to its home page.

- *cgi\_links*

  If set to **yes**, add CVSweb/ViewCVS hyperlinks to version numbers and diff symbols.

- *cgi\_urlbase*

  If *cgi\_links* is active, set the CGI base location.

- *cgi\_download*

  If set to **yes**, links will download file revisions 'as is'.

The mail command can be configured with the *mail* set. The following fields are available :

- *command*

  Set the command invoked to send mail. It can be either *internal* or the name of an external program.

  The internal mailer uses SMTP directly. If the *smtp\_server* parameter is not set, the default SMTP server configured in Net::Config will be used.

  The external command is expected to accept the standard BSD *mailx* behaviour : **-a** for headers, **-s** for subject, addresses as regular arguments and body received via stdin.

- *smtp\_server*

  Set the name of the SMTP server when the internal mailer is used. Ignored if an external mail program is used.

- *subject*

  Set mail subject. If set to **message**, automatically extracts the first line of the first changeset log message.

- *from*

  Set the sender name and address. If unspecified, is forged from various information sources.

- *reply-to*

  If set, add as a regular Reply-To header to every mail sent.

If no command is given to **cvsreport**, it automatically issues a **file text -** command. You can also use scripts to specify a list of commands, using the syntax described in **COMMANDS**. These commands are collected at start up time and all executed when the history has been retrieved.

## FILES

*/etc/cvsreport.conf*

The global configuration file.

*/tmp/cvsreport.log*

The debug output when there is no tty (eg. on server side).

## ENVIRONMENT

- CVSROOT

  The value of **CVSROOT** is used like in **cvs (1)**, see the -d option.

- CVS\_RSH

  Set the access method for an external cvsroot (rsh, ssh), see **cvs (1)**.

- CVSREPORT\_DEBUG

  When set, equivalent to the **--debug** option.

## BUGS

Working on remote repositories is **awfully** slow (blame CVS).\
 Usage of whitespace in file or folder names messes cvsreport up (blame again CVS).

## AUTHOR

Written by Vincent Caron \<v.caron@zerodeux.net\>

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2003 Vincent Caron.\
 This is Free Software released under the GNU GPL license.

## SEE ALSO

[**cvs**(1)](/cvs/1.md), [**mail**(1)](/mail/1.md)