# Piston 1.2.0: status, better update **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [November 17, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/piston-1-2-0-status-better-update/76324 "2006-11-17T16:54:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fbeausoleil](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/ec9cab/32.png) [@fbeausoleil](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fbeausoleil)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/piston-1-2-0-status-better-update/76324/1 "2006-11-17T16:54:33Z")
Piston 1.2.0 is here. From the ChangeLog: - New status subcommand. Shows M if locally or remotely modified. Applies to one, many, all folders. This subcommand _requires_ the use of a Subversion 1.2.0 client. Thanks to Chris W. for the inspiration. His Rake tasks are available at [SOAP in my Mocha! — err.the\_blog](http://errtheblog.com/post/38). - Minor patch by Miguel Ibero Carreras to make Subversion always use the C locale, instead of the current one. This allows Piston to be used with internationalized versions of Subversion. David Bittencourt later reported the same problem. Thanks! - Better handle how update finds it’s latest local revision to prevent conflicts. If you had never locally changed your vendor repositories, this fix will change nothing for you. This helps prevent local conflicts if you had ever applied a local patch. == Installation $ gem install piston Successfully installed piston, version 1.2.0 (Allow some time for the RubyForge file release system to propagate the gem) There is no need to install “Piston”:[http://piston.rubyforge.org/](http://piston.rubyforge.org/) on your server. A local installation on your development machine is all that you need to administer the remote code. == Caveat It is _imperative_ that you locally update your piston:local-revision property manually, just this once. Prior to 1.2.0, Piston would almost never update the piston:local-revision property, meaning it would always think there were local changes. With the new update implementation, Piston would try to merge changes that had already occured, causing many conflicts. You need to reset the value of piston:local-revision to the revision where you last did a piston update or import. An example is in order. $ svn propget piston:local-revision vendor\rails 29 ## $ svn log -r head:1 vendor/rails r31 | francois | 2006-11-17 10:05:54 -0500 (ven., 17 nov. 2006) | 1 line ## Updated to Rails r4500 r30 | francois | 2006-11-17 10:03:48 -0500 (ven., 17 nov. 2006) | 1 line ## Import Rails r4393 $ svn propset piston:local-revision 31 vendor\rails property ‘piston:local-revision’ set on ‘vendor\rails’ $ svn commit --quiet --message “Updated piston:local-revision to 31, per ChangeLog instructions” Visit [http://piston.rubyforge.org/](http://piston.rubyforge.org/) for all the details. == What is Piston ? Piston is a utility that eases vendor branch management. This is similar to svn:externals, except you have a local copy of the files, which you can modify at will. As long as the changes are mergeable, you should have no problems. Piston has a similar purpose than svnmerge.py which you can find in the contrib/client-side folder of the main Subversion. The main difference is that Piston is designed to work with remote repositories. You should also investigate if SVK would be a better fit for you. From Wikipedia’s Piston: - In general, a piston is a sliding plug that fits closely inside the bore of a cylinder. - Its purpose is either to change the volume enclosed by the cylinder, or to exert a force on a fluid inside the cylinder. For Piston, we retain the second meaning, to exert a force on a fluid inside the cylinder. In our case, the fluid is the code copied from the remote repository. Enjoy ! ---
**Author:** ![fbeausoleil](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/ec9cab/32.png) [@fbeausoleil](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fbeausoleil)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 1:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/piston-1-2-0-status-better-update/76324/2 "2006-11-19T13:58:35Z")
On 11/18/06, Francois B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Piston 1.2.0 is here. > > ## Enjoy ! > > François Beausoleil François, Firstly thanx for such a great app. I am an svn noob, and this has made it possible for me to manage my repo relatively easily. I’ve just upgraded to 1.2 and tried to generate a new project. Then i’ve tried to import edge rails and simply\_bdd but I get an error. C:\rails\_projects\soter\>piston import [http://dev.rubyonrails.org/svn/rails/trunk](http://dev.rubyonrails.org/svn/rails/trunk) vendor/rails svn: Explicit target required (‘vendor/rails’ interpreted as prop value) c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/piston-1.2.0/lib/piston/command.rb:38:in `svn': Command svn propset piston:remote-revision vendor/rails resulted in an error: (RuntimeError) from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/piston-1.2.0/lib/piston/commands/import.rb:40:in `run’ from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/piston-1.2.0/lib/piston/command.rb:18:in `execute' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/piston-1.2.0/lib/piston/ui/command_line.rb:57:in `start’ from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/piston-1.2.0/bin/piston:12 from c:/ruby/bin/piston:18:in `load’ from c:/ruby/bin/piston:18 I’m on Windows XP, and ruby 1.8.5. My svn repo is on [devjavu.com](http://devjavu.com) and is password protected. I haven’t been able to pass the --useraname or –password options through to the svn command. Is anyone else having this kind of issue? What have I done wrong? Cheers Daniel