Re: Renaming categories in Gnats 3.113.1

[Hans-Albert Schneider]

Walt Sullivan wrote:
> 
> I'm running Gnats 3.113.1, GnatsWeb 2.9.3 on Linux.
> I've received a request to change the names of several categories.

I faced the same problem almost exactly two years ago.

There is now an entry in the GNATS FAQ about this.  The FAQ is at
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnats/doc/faq/gnats-faq.html
Go to "Configuration Issues" / "General Configuration Questions" /
"How do I rename a category?"

If you want to check the mails from then, go to
        http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnats/
and search for
        categor* and renam*

> Is it as simple as I think? I think I can:
> 
> 1. Stop the queue-pr cron job.
> 
> 2. Edit the "categories" file, change "oldname" to "newname".
> 
> 3. Rename the directory from "oldname" to "newname".
> 
> 4. Restart the queue-pr cron job.
> 
> Is it really that simple, or are there gotchas waiting to bite me?

If you are using proper locking, steps 1 and 4 are superflouos.
If you do not use locking, steps 2 and 3 may interfere with somebody
else changing one of the reports at the same time.

As the PR files themselves bear the category name in them, steps 2
and 3 are not that simple: the index is not updated, and (at least
in GNATS 3.xxx) it contains the category names given in the file.
The FAQ describes a safer method.  I use the attached script when I
have to rename a category.  I have written similar scripts for changing
responsibles and e-mail addresses (which was necessary because our
team has been transfered to another company).

Note: I did not yet check whether this script also works for GNATS 4.0.
I am aware of one caveat with GNATS 4:
If you changed the the name of the "Category" field, you need to
adjust the strings in lines 45, 49, and 82.


Hans-Albert

-- 
Hans-Albert Schneider           <address@hidden>
Infineon Technologies AG        phone:  (+49) 89 234 45445
Corporate Logic; Verification   fax:    (+49) 89 234 724399
(CL DAT TDM VM)                 Munich, Germany

#!/bin/sh
#
# Move a report from one category to another.
# Author: address@hidden
# Copyright (C) Siemens AG, CT SE 4, 2001
#

usage="usage: $0 -d gnats_root old_category new_category"

# Check usage
if [ $# -lt 4 ]
then
    echo $usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

if [ "x$1" = "x-d" ]
then
    gnatsroot="$2"
else
    echo $usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

oldcat="$3"
newcat="$4"

if [ ! -d "$gnatsroot/$oldcat" ]
then
    echo $usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

if [ ! -d "$gnatsroot/$newcat" ]
then
    mkcat -d "$gnatsroot"
fi

if [ ! -d "$gnatsroot/$newcat" ]
then
    echo $usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

echo "Category" | grep -i "$newcat" >/dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
    echo "Sorry, but the name of the old category, $oldcat," >&2
    echo "is a substring of the word 'Category'." >&2
    echo "This script cannot deal with that case; it would mess up" >&2
    echo "your reports." >&2
    echo "Please do the renaming manually." >&2
    exit 2
fi

#
# End of usage checking
#

# First, check for the trivial case:
reports=`echo "$gnatsroot/$oldcat"/*`
if [ "x$reports" = "x$gnatsroot/$oldcat/*" ]
then
    echo "No entries in category $oldcat"
    exit 0
fi

# Create a temporary file to be used as the EDITOR environment variable.
# Make sure it belongs to us, and nobody else can modify it.
#
tmp=${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/mvcat$$
[ -f "$tmp" ] && rm -f "$tmp"
[ -f "$tmp" ] && echo "Cannot rm $tmp" >&2 && exit 2
touch "$tmp" || echo "Cannot create $tmp" >&2
[ -f "$tmp" ] || exit 2
chmod 700 "$tmp"

cat >"$tmp" <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
# change category of GNATS problem report
EOF
echo "(echo '/>Category:/ s/$oldcat/$newcat/'; echo w) | ed "'$1' >> "$tmp"

EDITOR="$tmp"
export EDITOR
unset VISUAL


set -- "$gnatsroot/$oldcat"/*
for id in "$@"
do
    edit-pr -d "$gnatsroot" `basename $id`
done

rm -f "$tmp"