System and method for distributed revision control

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016253373-A1
Application number	US-201514633077-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 26, 2015
Priority date	Feb 26, 2015
Publication date	Sep 1, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system and method for distributed revision control includes receiving, by a revision control module being executed by one or more processors of a server, a request to store a first version in a repository, the repository comprising a plurality of stored versions, determining whether the first version is in the repository, incrementing a client reference counter associated with the first version when the first version is in the repository, adding the first version to the repository and sending the first version to one or more additional servers when the first version is not in the repository, and decrementing a server reference counter associated with a second version in the repository when the first version replaces the second version as a head version of the repository.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method of revision control, the method comprising:
receiving, by a revision control module being executed by one or more processors of a server, a request to store a first version in a repository, the repository comprising a plurality of stored versions; determining whether the first version is in the repository; when the first version is in the repository, incrementing a client reference counter associated with the first version; when the first version is not in the repository, adding the first version to the repository and sending the first version to one or more additional servers; and when the first version replaces the second version as a head version of the repository, decrementing a server reference counter associated with a second version in the repository.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, from another server, a third version; adding the third version to the repository; determining whether the third version replaces a fourth version as a head version of the repository; and when the third version replaces the fourth version as the head version of the repository, incrementing a server reference counter associated with the third version and decrementing a server reference counter associated with the fourth version.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising, when the server is designated as a master server, merging branched versions in the repository, forming a fifth version, and sending the fifth version to the one or more additional servers.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a request to retrieve a third version from the repository; determining whether the third version is in the repository; and when the third version is in the repository, retrieving the third version from the repository and decrementing a client reference counter associated with the third version.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising trimming a first one of the stored versions in the repository when a corresponding client reference counter associated with the first one of the stored versions is below a first predetermined threshold and a corresponding server reference counter associated with the first one of the stored versions is below a first predetermined threshold.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein trimming the first one of the stored versions comprises computing one or more composite patches based on a patch associated with the first one of the stored versions.

7 . The method of claim 5 , wherein sequence metadata associated with the first one of the stored versions indicates that the first one of the stored versions is older than an oldest active stored version, the oldest active stored version being the oldest stored version in the repository that has corresponding client and server reference counters above the first and second predetermined thresholds, respectively.

8 . The method of claim 5 , wherein trimming the first one of the stored versions comprises moving the first one of the stored versions from a primary memory to a secondary memory.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving a request to trim a first one of the stored versions in the repository from another server and trimming the first one of the stored versions.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the repository comprises version identifiers, version data, sequence metadata, and owner identifiers for each of the plurality of stored versions.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising maintaining client and server reference counters for each of the plurality of stored versions that are owned by the server.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the version identifiers uniquely identify each of the plurality of stored versions, the version identifiers including hash values of each of the plurality of stored versions.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein trimming the first one of the stored versions comprises moving the first one of the stored versions from a primary memory to a secondary memory.

14 . A revision control system comprising:
a revision control module executed by one or more process of a server; and a repository configured to provide access to a plurality of stored versions of a shared document; wherein the revision control module is configured to:
receive a request to store a first version in the repository;
determine whether the first version is in the repository;
when the first version is in the repository, increment a client reference counter associated with the first version;
when the first version is not in the repository, add the first version to the repository and send the first version to one or more additional servers; and
when the first version replaces the second version as a head version of the repository, decrement a server reference counter associated with a second version in the repository.

15 . The revision control system of claim 14 , wherein the revision control module is further configured to:
receive, from another server, a third version; add the third version to the repository; determine whether the third version replaces a fourth version as a head version of the repository; and when the third version replaces the fourth version as the head version of the repository, increment a server reference counter associated with the third version and decrement a server reference counter associated with the fourth version.

16 . The revision control system of claim 15 , wherein the revision control module is further configured to merge branched versions in the repository to form a fifth version and send the fifth version to the one or more additional servers when the server is designated as a master server.

17 . The revision control system of claim 14 , wherein the revision control module is further configured to:
receive a request to retrieve a third version from the repository; determine whether the third version is in the repository; and when the third version is in the repository, retrieve the third version from the repository and decrement a client reference counter associated with the third version.

18 . The revision control system of claim 14 , further comprising a garbage collection module configured to trim a first one of the stored versions in the repository when a corresponding client reference counter associated with the first one of the stored versions is below a first predetermined threshold and a corresponding server reference counter associated with the first one of the stored versions is below a first predetermined threshold.

19 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising a plurality of machine-readable instructions which when executed by one or more processors associated with a server are adapted to cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:
receiving a request to store a first version in a repository, the repository comprising a plurality of stored versions; determining whether the first version is in the repository; when the first version is in the repository, incrementing a client reference counter associated with the first version; when the first version is not in the repository, adding the first version to the repository and sending the first version to one or more additional servers; when the first version replaces the second version as a head version of the repository, decrementing a server reference counter associated with a second version in the repository; receiving, from another server, a third version; adding the third

Assignees

• Red Hat Inc

Inventors

• Fryc Lukas

Classifications

• G06F8/65 Primary

  Updates (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57) · CPC title

• G06F8/71

  Version control (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57); Configuration management · CPC title

• G06F16/1873

  Versioning file systems, temporal file systems, e.g. file system supporting different historic versions of files · CPC title

• G06F17/30309

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30371 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic