[SOLVED] How to require commit messages in VisualSVN server?

How to require commit messages in VisualSVN server?

We've got VisualSVN Server set up as our Subversion server on Windows, and we use Ankhsvn + TortoiseSVN as clients on our workstations.

How can you configure the server to require commit messages to be non-empty?

Solution

VisualSVN Server 3.9 provides the VisualSVNServerHooks.exe check-logmessage pre-commit hook that helps you reject commits with empty or short log messages. See the article KB140: Validating commit log messages in VisualSVN Server for instructions.

Besides the built-in VisualSVNServerHooks.exe, VisualSVN Server and SVN in general uses a number of hooks to accomplish tasks like this.

start-commit — run before commit transaction begins, can be used to do special permission checking
pre-commit — run at the end of the transaction, but before commit. Often used to validate things such as a non zero length log message.
post-commit — runs after the transaction has been committed. Can be used for sending emails, or backing up repository.
pre-revprop-change — runs before a revision property change. Can be used to check permissions.
post-revprop-change — runs after a revision property change. Can be used to email or backup these changes.

You need to use the pre-commit hook. You can write it yourself in just about any language your platform supports, but there are a number of scripts on the web. Googling "svn precommit hook to require comment" I found a couple that looked like they would fit the bill: