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ACTIVITYMAIL(1)	      User Contributed Perl Documentation      ACTIVITYMAIL(1)

NAME
       activitymail - CVS activity notification

SYNOPSIS
	 # In commitinfo:
	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -l

	 # In loginfo:
	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -dacf '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

DESCRIPTION
       This program may be used for sending email messages for CVS repository
       activity. There are a number of different modes supported. It can send
       messages for every change to the repository (like "syncmail"), or it
       can be used to send a single message for each commit. In the latter
       case, a list of all the files affected by the commit will be assembled
       and listed in the single message. This is similar to how "commit_prep"
       and "log_accum" work, but is more efficient.

       An additional option allows for diffs to be calculated for the recent
       changes, and either appended to the message (like "syncmail" does) or
       added as an attachment (neater). See the "-d" and "-a" options below.

PREREQUISITES
       This script requires Getopt::Std and File::Basename. It also requires a
       CVS server and the diff package. See "Known Issues" for more
       information.

COREQUISITES
       This script works best with File::Spec installed. See "Known Issues"
       for more information.

USAGE
       To use this program, you need to check out your CVSROOT repository from
       CVS and edit some files. Here are the steps to follow:

       1.  Copy activitymail into your CVSROOT checkout.

       2.  Add activitymail to the CVSROOT repository.

       3.  Add activitymail to the checkoutlist file.

       4.  If you plan to use commit mode (see "Commit Mode" below), add a
	   call (or calls) to "activitymail" with the "-l" options to the
	   commitinfo file.  Read the CVS docs to determine the format for
	   this file, and to decide which repositories for which you want it
	   run. Here's an example:

	     DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -l

       5.  Add a call (or calls) to activitymail to the loginfo file. Note
	   that the "-f" and "-t" options are required here, and the "-P"
	   option is a good idea for CVS 1.12 and later. Use the "-c" option
	   if you're running commit mode (i.e., you've added a call with "-l"
	   to the commitinfo file -- see "Commit Mode" below). Here's an
	   example:

	     DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -cP %p -f '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

       6.  Commit your changes to CVSROOT.

OPTIONS
       -l  Directory logging mode. Use this mode in the commitinfo file to log
	   the current directory. Best if used with "-c" in the loginfo file
	   -- otherwise it's just a waste.

       -c  Commit mode. This mode will aggregate all the actions on a single
	   commit and send a single message. Must have specified "-l" in the
	   commitinfo file.

       -f '%{sVv}'
	   The file spec argument from CVS. It must be called as "-f
	   '%{sVv}'". Single quotes are recommended, as some shells otherwise
	   seem to have a hard time.  Required unless "-l". CVS 1.12 and later
	   users should also use "-P %p", as "-f %1{SVv}" will generate
	   deprecation warnings.

       -P  The directory argument from CVS. This option is only useful for CVS
	   1.12 or later, where the command line format should be "-P %p -f
	   '%{sVv}'".

       -t <email>
	   The email address or addresses to send notifications to. Required
	   unless "-l".

       -e <cvs>
	   Location of the CVS executable, e.g., /usr/bin/cvs. Defaults to
	   cvs, thus assuming that the cvs executable is in the path.

       -d  Include the diffs for all the files processed. These will be
	   appended to the notification message unless the -a option has been
	   specified.

       -j <diff>
	   Location of the diff executable, e.g., /usr/bin/diff. Defaults to
	   diff, thus assuming that the cvs executable is in the path. Used
	   only for comparing added and deleted files to /dev/null.

       -N <file>
	   Location of the null file. Defaults to /dev/null. This file will be
	   used to diff against deleted and added files. In most cases this
	   option can be left to the default, but Win32 systems, for example,
	   will need to change it to NUL or some such.

       -o <diff options>
	   Options to pass to the "cvs diff" command. Useful for changing the
	   behavior of the diff command. Be sure to include these options
	   inside quotation marks so that they will be distinguished from the
	   options parsed by activitymail itself. See diff for a list of
	   available options. Defaults to "-u --minimal" if not specified.

       -a  Attach diffs to the notification message. The diffs for all the
	   files processed will be calculated, and then they will be added to
	   the message as an attachment.

       -r <email>
	   An optional reply-to address. This address will be added to a
	   Reply-To header in the notification email.

       -n  Ignore "New directory" commits. By default, activitymail sends mail
	   when a directory has been added. Use this option to ignore those
	   actions.

       -i  Ignore imports. By default, activitymail sends mail when a files
	   have been imported. Use this option to ignore those actions.

       -m <message>
	   An optional message to put at the beginning of the email subject.

       -p  Option to add the name of the CVS module to the message subject.

       -S  Optional attempt give the file name or lowest common directory
	   name. Used only in commit mode.

       -s <sendmail>
	   Location of sendmail. If not specified, activitymail will search
	   for sendmail in the following locations: "/usr/lib/sendmail".
	   "/usr/sbin/sendmail", "/usr/ucblib/sendmail". If activitymail
	   cannot find sendmail, it'll throw an exception.

       -u <user email>
	   Email address to use in the From header of the commit email
	   message. Typical usage is to use the CVS $USER variable to specify
	   an address, e.g., "-u ${USER}@example.com". The default behavior is
	   to provide no From header and to let Sendmail do it.

       -g  Groups the collection of CVS transactions in a single commit by the
	   $USER environment variable. This is most useful when connecting to
	   CVS via ":pserver:", since the usual method of collecting
	   transactions -- by relying on the value returned by "pgrp", won't
	   work. Use in both the commitinfo and loginfo files, or else it
	   won't work at all!

       -M <size>
	   Max length for email messages, in kilobytes. If an email greater
	   than this size would be sent then an error message is printed to
	   the user's terminal, instead. This option is useful if your
	   repository contains large binary files not prevented from be diffed
	   by "-B", or when adding many files at once.	In those cases,
	   failing to use this option may result in broken mail clients.

       -V  Include the old and new revision numbers after each file listed in
	   the email.

       -H  Generate HTML emails. The Content-Type header will be set to
	   "text/html" and some basic HTML formatting tags used for the
	   display of the commit message.

       -C <charset>
	   Character set to be used in the Content-Type header. Defaults to
	   "UTF-8". If much of the content in your repository is encoded in a
	   character set incompatible with UTF-8, then set this option for a
	   more appropriate character set.

       -w <url>
	   Include links to specified ViewVC or CVSWeb URL for the diffs for
	   each file.  Most useful with the "-H" option.

       -B <list>
	   Binary file extension list. "activitymail" does its best to prevent
	   binary files from being diffed by using the Perl "-B" operator to
	   check for binary files. However, this approach doesn't catch all
	   binary files. If you find that "activitymail" is diffing binary
	   files, use this option to specify a quoted, space-delimited list of
	   file name extensions on the binary files that you want
	   "activitymail" to skip.

       -I <regexen>
	   A quoted, space-delimited list of regular expressions identifying
	   the files to include in the processing of the commit message. Use
	   "\s" in place of literal spaces. The file name checked by the
	   regular expression will be relative to the CVS module root. Cannot
	   be used in combination with "-E".

       -E <regexen>
	   A quoted, space-delimited list of regular expressions identifying
	   the files to exclude from the processing of the commit message. Use
	   "\s" in place of literal spaces. The file name checked by the
	   regular expression will be relative to the CVS module root. Cannot
	   be used in combination with "-I".

       -U  Older versions of CVS had a bug that prevented them from properly
	   diffing when they were passed arguments to be passed to "diff" with
	   spaces in them.  Since we use the "-L" option to diff to pass in
	   the complete file name to be put into the diff headers, this can
	   lead to problems. So if you're using an older version of CVS that
	   exhibits this problem (prior to 1.12, if I recall correctly), use
	   this option to replace any spaces in file names with underscores
	   before passing them off to "diff".

       -q  Quiet mode. Status messages will be suppressed. Debug messages will
	   still be output if "-D" is enabled.

       -Q  Very quiet mode. In addition to the status messages suppressed by
	   "-q", "-Q" will also suppress the message output when an email
	   won't be sent because of a size limitation set by "-m". Debug
	   messages will still be output if "-D" is enabled.

       -h  Print usage statement. It's a simplified version of this section of
	   the docs, intended to remind the user of all the options. Be sure
	   to read the detailed descriptions here, first.

       -D  Enables debug mode. This will trigger lots of output. All
	   activitymail debug messages will start with the string "@@@@@@@@
	   activitymail debug:" so that they can be spotted easily.

MODES
   Standard Mode
       In this mode, a notification message will be sent for every directory
       affected by a single commit to the repository. This could be a lot of
       messages if you've made a lot of changes, and is thus highly redundant.

       To use it, all you need to cimply add a call to "activitymail" to your
       loginfo file with (at minimum) the "-f", "-P" (for CVS 1.12 and later),
       and "-t" options:

	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -P %p -f '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

       To mimic the behavior of syncmail, add the -d option to append diffs:

	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -dP %p -f '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

   Commit Mode
       This mode takes a just a little more work to put in place, but manages
       your email resources much more efficiently. In this mode,
       "activitymail" tracks all the files changed throughout a single commit
       and sends a single email when all the changes have been made. This is
       especially useful in circumstances where many files have been changed
       at once. In standard mode, many messages will be sent, but in commit
       mode, only one will be sent.

       An additional advantge of commit mode is that "activitymail" will
       construct a custom subject for the notification messages. In standard
       mode, the subject is simply the contents of the "-P" and "-f" options.
       In commit mode, however, "activitymail" will use either the first
       sentence of the log message, or the maximum number of words that take
       up less than 72 characters (including the "-m" and/or "-p" options, if
       specified). This offers an easy way to see what was done during the
       commit based on the context of the beginning of the actual log message.
       CVS users thus might want to consider making the first sentence of
       their messages (up to the first period) be a brief summary, and the
       rest of the message can be a more detailed description of the changes.

       To use commit mode, you must place a call to "activitymail" with the
       "-l" option in your commitinfo file for every repository package you
       want to manage in commit mode. Usually, that's everything, so you can
       just use the line (as long as you have no other lines -- see cvs for
       more information):

	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -l

       Then, you'll need to add a second call to "activitymail" to your
       loginfo file for the same repository packages as in the commitinfo
       file's call to "activitymail". A convenient line for this purpose (even
       if you have other log filters in place) is the ALL line:

	 ALL $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -cf '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

       The DEFAULT line will work equally well. Perhaps you want to have mail
       sent to different addresses for different repository packages. see cvs
       for more information on the loginfo file syntax.

       If you'd like to see diffs for the changes for any particular commit,
       add the "-d" option. All of the changes to the repository will be
       recorded in diff format and appended to the end of the message:

	 ALL $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -cdf '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

       Better still, have the diffs added to the message as attachments by
       adding the -a option.

	 ALL $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -cdaf '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

       Finally, If you commit to CVS via ":pserver:", you should use the -g
       option to get "activitymail" to properly group all of the CVS activity
       for a commit. By default, "activitymail" uses the value returned by
       "pgrp" to determine what's part of a single commit action and what's
       another action. However, in ":pserver:" mode, "pgrp" always returns the
       same value. The solution is to use the $USER environment variable to
       group the CVS activity. The assumption is that a single user will not
       be doing two separate commits at the same time, so this should work
       fine. Note that if you use the -g option, you must use it in both the
       commitinfo file:

	 DEFAULT $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -lg

       And the loginfo file:

	 ALL $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/activitymail -cdagf '%{sVv}' -t admins@example.com

KNOWN ISSUES
       ·   This program depends on the presence of several modules that are
	   distributed standard with Perl. They are Getopt::Std,
	   File::Basename, and File::Spec. If either Getopt::Std or
	   File::Basename isn't present, "activitymail" won't run. If
	   File::Spec isn't installed (not uncommon, since it's a fairly
	   recent addition to Perl -- SourceForge, for example, doesn't have
	   it as of this writing), "activitymail" will assume very simple Unix
	   semantics for creating file names, and will assume that "/tmp" is
	   the temp directory.

       ·   The default "diff" on SunOS 5.9 does not like the "-L" option that
	   "activitymail" uses. The workaround is to install GNU "diff".

TO DO
       ·   Change the way diffs are aggregated for messages so that we're not
	   loading them all up into memory, but passing them directly to
	   sendmail instead. This should dramatically lower the amount of
	   memory "activitymail" takes up during a large commit.

BUGS
       Please send bug reports to <bug-activitymail@rt.cpan.org> or report
       them via the CPAN Request Tracker at
       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=activitymail>.

AUTHOR
       David Wheeler <david@justatheory.com>

SEE ALSO
       SVN::Notify
	   This is a port of "activitymail" to subversion. Only it's a lot
	   better.  Check it out!

       CVSspam
	   Ruby-powered CVS notification. Includes colored HTML
	   representations of diffs right in the email.
	   <http://www.badgers-in-foil.co.uk/projects/cvsspam/>.

       syncmail
	   Python-powered CVS notification. Sends emails with diffs for every
	   directory in a single commit. Popular on SourceForge.
	   <http://sourceforge.net/projects/cvs-syncmail>.

       commit_prep & log_accum
	   The original Perl 4-powered CVS notification applications.
	   <http://ccvs.cvshome.org/source/browse/ccvs/contrib/log_accum.in>,
	   <http://ccvs.cvshome.org/source/browse/ccvs/contrib/commit_prep.in>.

SUPPORT
       This module is stored in an open repository at the following address:

       <http://github.com/theory/activitymail/tree/>

       Patches against Widget::Meta are welcome. Please send bug reports to
       <bug-activitymail@rt.cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
       Copyright (c) 2002-2009, David Wheeler. Some Rights Reserved.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl.

perl v5.20.2			  2015-08-30		       ACTIVITYMAIL(1)
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