I wrote a bash script to reduce the tag clutter that is building up in our SVN repository due to the numerous QA tags that we have generated since Sakai 2.4.0.  For a given tag, the script checks out the relevant .externals file, parses it for project module names and then iterates through the resulting list, issuing a succession of svn delete statements before exiting the loop and deleting the parent tag folder in /sakai/tags.

I should note that the tags are simply removed from the HEAD revision.  They are not actually deleted.  The result is a set of "clean" tag directories containing fewer obsolete tags—all good for new developers having a look around the repo and perhaps for veterans as well.

I identified 35 obsolete QA tags and began deleting them last week.  The only downside to the effort was that each project module deletion resulted in the generation of an email alert to the Sakai Collab SVN committer list (we use a Perl script to fire off an email alert after each SVN commit).  Given that each tag deletion generated 70 notifications, this operation would result in some 2450 email alerts, more than enough email to guarantee transparency but also more than enough to irritate any committers who prefer to store their Sakai SVN commit email in their inbox rather than shunting it to a child folder via a rule.

I finished removing the 35 obsolete QA tags today.  Going forward, we will probably switch off email alert generation for the committer running these scripts in order to eliminate both unwanted and unnecessary email alerts.  In May I plan to delete the Sakai 2.5.0 beta and RC tags if no one objects.

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