SVN-BISECT(1)						      General Commands Manual						     SVN-BISECT(1)

NAME

       svn-bisect - Bisect Subversion revisions to find a regression

SYNOPSIS

       svn-bisect start [good_rev [bad_rev]]

       svn-bisect {good|bad} [rev]

       svn-bisect run command

       svn-bisect reset

       svn-bisect status

DESCRIPTION

       svn-bisect  helps  to  automate	finding a bug or behavior change in a Subversion working copy.	Given an initial "good" revision, with the
       desired or original behavior, and a newer "bad" revision, with the undesired or modified behavior,  svn-bisect  will  do  a  binary  search
       through the revision range to find which revision caused the change.

       svn-bisect  must  be initialized in a working copy, with svn-bisect start.  It also needs to be given at least one good revision (the base-
       line) and one bad revision (known modified behavior) revision.

       Sub-commands:

       start  Initializes or reinitializes svn-bisect; optionally takes good and bad revision parameters.

       good rev

       bad rev
	      Tells svn-bisect that a revision is good or bad, defining or narrowing the search space.	If not specified, revision defaults to the
	      current  revision  in  the working copy.	svn-bisect will then update to a revision halfway between the new good and bad boundaries.
	      If this update crosses a point where a branch was created, it switches in or out of the branch.

       reset  Resets the working copy to the revision and branch where svn-bisect start was run.  In the simple case this is equivalent to  rm	-r
	      .svn-bisect;  svn  update,  but  not  if	it  has crossed branches, and not if you did not start at the HEAD revision.  In any case,
	      svn-bisect never keeps track of mixed-revision working copies, so do not use svn-bisect in a working  copy  that	will  need  to	be
	      restored to mixed revisions.

       status Prints a brief status message.

       run command
	      Runs  the  bisection in a loop.  You must have already defined initial good and bad boundary conditions.	Each iteration through the
	      loop runs command as a shell command (a single argument, quoted if necessary) on the chosen revision, then  marks  the  revision	as
	      good or bad, based on the exit status of command.

EXAMPLES

       Assume you are trying to find which revision between 1250 and 1400 caused the make check command to fail.

	   svn-bisect start 1250 1400
	   svn-bisect run 'make check'
	   svn-bisect reset

ENVIRONMENT

       SVN    The Subversion command-line program to call (default svn).

FILES

       .svn-bisect
	      The directory containing state information, removed after a successful bisection.

SEE ALSO

       git-bisect(1).

AUTHOR

       Written by Robert Millan and Peter Samuelson, for the Debian Project (but may be used by others).

								    2009-10-22							     SVN-BISECT(1)