Log Cache
The Log Cache is the local data storage for the Transactions. It is also used by other SmartSVN commands, for instance the Log. It stores and supplies the raw log information as received from the server and can supply them to various commands later on. This can increase log performance significantly and also leads to reduced network traffic.
When Log information is requested for the first time for a certain repository, you can choose which parts of the repository should be indexed by the Log Cache. In general it is recommended to select Create cache for whole repository at to let SmartSVN index the whole repository. The reason for this is that logs of a certain ‘module’ can have links to other modules, due to the way Subversion’s Copy mechanism works. Sometimes repositories can be very large and you may be interested only in a few modules of the whole repository. In this case it may be more efficient to select Create cache only for module at and select the corresponding module. However, this can lead to incomplete logs due to the reasons stated above. For some repositories you might want to use create no Log Cache at all. In this case choose Skip cache and perform logs directly.
SmartSVN automatically keeps the Log Cache(s) up-to-date. All log-related commands always query the repository for the latest logs, before querying the Log Cache. In the same way, every manually or automatically triggered refresh of the Transactions will update the corresponding caches.
Log results (for instance used by the Log command) from the Log Cache are in general identical to results obtained when querying the server directly. However there can be differences for following situations:
- Server-side access restrictions on already cached revisions are changed afterwards. This happens for instance, when using and modifying AuthzSVNAccessFile for HTTP repositories.
- Log information for already cached revisions are changed on the server afterwards. This happens for instance when changing the repository’s database directly or by changing revision properties, e.g. when another user has performed Change Commit Message.
In such cases, you should rebuild the Log Cache as described in Manage Log Caches.
Manage Log Caches
In the Project Window use Project|Manage Log Caches to manage the local Log Caches.
The list shows all known Root URLs and the corresponding Log Type. For Log Type set to Local Log Cache there exists a local Log Cache for the Root URL against which logs will be performed. Otherwise, for Direct Logs onto Repository, the logs will be performed directly against the repository.
Log Caches are created on demand for a new Root URL and the choice whether to use a Local Log Cache or Direct Logs onto Repository has to be done when a log is first requested for that URL. This choice will be remembered and typically doesn’t need to be changed afterwards. If necessary anway, you can use Delete for the corresponding Root URL. This will discard the Log Type choice and get rid of the Log Cache in case of Local Log Cache choice. Hence, subsequent log requests for this URL (or child URLs) will bring the Log Cache initialization dialog again.
Select Rebuild for a Local Log Cache to rebuild it from repository log information. In general it’s recommended to rebuild caches completely by selecting All unless you know that only log information Starting with a certain revision had been changed.
Storage
The Log Cache information is stored in the subdirectory log-cache in
SmartSVN’s settings directory. For every Log Cache, there is a separate
subdirectory containing the server name and repository path. This is
typically sufficient to quickly locate the cache for a specific
repository. In case there are multiple subdirectories with the same
name, only differing and the trailing number, you can have a look at the
contained urls files. They show the exact location for which the Log
Cache has been built.
If you encounter problems when rebuilding the cache, or if you need to
get rid of the cached information for a certain repository, you can
remove the corresponding subdirectory. Alternatively, you can remove the
whole log-cache in order to get rid of all cached log information. You
should never change these files while SmartSVN is running, otherwise the
results will be unpredictable.