I’m using the post-commit hook to send out E-mail notifications when changes are committed to Subversion repositories.

If you search the web you’ll find a ton of scripts in various languages for this purpose. They all do more or less the same thing: create an E-mail message for the commit, including such details as the revision author, number, timestamp, a list of the paths that were changed, and a diff of the changes.

For one particular project I wanted the diff as an attachment, though, rather than inline in the message text. So I ended up writing my own script. It’s a Shell script that should work on most Unix/Linux based systems.

Source code

Installation instructions

To install this for your repository:

1. Copy commit-report.sh to the server hosting your repository, for instance to /usr/local/bin, and make sure it’s executable (run chmod +x commit-report.sh)
2. Check line #2 of commit-report.sh – you may need to change that address depending on your individual circumstances I removed this item later: see this comment
3. Edit line #2 of the file post-commit: change /path/to to the correct path for your server, e.g. /usr/local/bin
4. Edit line #2 of the file post-commit: you probably don’t want to send reports to foo and bar at foo.local but to some other address(es)
5. If you want a fancy name in the subject line, instead of “SVN: `basename-of-your-repository`” append -name "Your fancy name here" to line #2 in post-commit
6. If you haven’t used the post-commit hook yet, copy the file post-commit to the hooks directory in your repository – Note: Don’t check it in, but copy it to the respository itself, e.g. in /srv/svn/repositories/myrepo/hooks
7. If you’ve already used the post-commit hook, and it’s a Shell script, append line #2 of the file post-commit to your script. If it’s not a Shell script you’ll have to figure out a way to call commit-report.sh with the correct parameters in your language

You can always test commit-report.sh by invoking it manually.

Troubleshooting

Update: Pointers for troubleshooting have been added later, based on your feedback…

• If the script runs without any errors on the console, but you never receive a commit report, change line #2 of commit-report.sh: put something like FROMADDRESS="youremail@yourdomain" in here

I just released version 0.4.2 of my Comment E-Mail Verification WordPress plugin. Most important change: verification codes are no longer being generated (and thus no longer cluttering up the database) for trackbacks and pingbacks. Thanks to Joost de Valk who contributed a few lines of code that ultimately took this important aspect off my todo-list.

As always: Download it directly from the wordpress.org plugin directory!

In the newest version (0.4.1) of my Comment E-Mail Verification plugin I fixed a bug that caused the verification link to malfunction with some setups.

Download it directly from the wordpress.org plugin directory

This update was inspired by user comments. Thanks for all your input.

The newest version (0.4-beta) of my Comment E-Mail Verification plugin now has an option to hold comments for moderation even after the authors have verified their E-mail addresses.

Download it directly from the wordpress.org plugin directory

This update was inspired by user comments. Thanks for all your input.

This is a beta version because the entire moderation/verification process requires some more streamlining and new default messages, but I felt there would be an audience for an early update anyway. If you have any suggestions or spotted an error: please share!

Quite a few people have reported issues with submitting solutions to the Facebook Puzzle Master. I hated the idea of installing and configuring a MUA to make things work, so I wrote a bash script. This should work on any Unix/Linux server with Postfix or Sendmail that is otherwise capable of sending Internet E-mail.

So far I have not been using any compiled languages. The script will have to be edited to be able to send compressed submissions with a Makefile etc.

The script should be in the same directory as your executable file and you should have a folder named “.archived-submissions” to hold your sent items, or edit the script accordingly. Then just call $ ./submit.sh <keyword> e.g. $ ./submit.sh meepmeep

You must edit line 2 (FROMADDRESS) to hold the address linked to your Facebook account (Google Mail, Yahoo!, university accounts, etc.) and line3 (SENDERADDRESS) to hold an address regularly used for sending on your server (to make sure you make it around any spam filters). Both lines may be set to the same address, but this didn’t seem to work in my case with Facebook linked to my Google Mail address.

#!/bin/bash
FROMADDRESS="youraddress@gmail.com"
SENDERADDRESS="yourotheraddress"
SUBMITTO="1051962371@fb.com"

NOW=`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S`
BOUNDARY=_`date | md5sum | cut -d\  -f1`_

MSGFILENAME=.archived-submissions/$NOW-$1.msg

cat > $MSGFILENAME <<TFNAB-27-End-of-File
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
        boundary="_001$BOUNDARY"
Sender: $SENDERADDRESS
From: $FROMADDRESS
To: $SUBMITTO
Subject: $1
Date: `date -R`
MIME-Version: 1.0

--_001$BOUNDARY
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

This text should be ignored by the robot

--_001$BOUNDARY
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="$1"

`base64 $1`

--_001$BOUNDARY--
TFNAB-27-End-of-File

/usr/sbin/sendmail -f $SENDERADDRESS $SUBMITTO < $MSGFILENAME

Note: it seems that using the address linked to your account is only of interest if you want to use the Facebook Puzzles App to post your successful submissions to your profile.

The newest version (0.3) of my Comment E-Mail Verification plugin now supports SMTP as an alternative method to send mail.

Download it directly from the wordpress.org plugin directory

Thanks to Mark for testing and feedback

It is also the first version to come with a German translation.

If you would like to help by translating this plugin to another language please download the plugin, grab the .pot file, create .po and .mo files and e-mail them to me. (You will be credited.) If this was all gibberish to you you can still help: please start by reading Translating WordPress Plugins & Themes – Of course you may contact me at anytime to find out whether anyone else has announced or sent to me a translation to that language already. This will avoid any unnecessary efforts on your side.

There was a very unfortunate bug in all previous versions of the Comment E-Mail Verification Plugin. The verification message was sent to all comment authors, i.e. including those whose comments were caught by Akismet (or any other anti-spam plugin).

I strongly recommend you update to the new version 0.1.2.1

Spammers often use fake mail addresses. If an address doesn’t exist, your only problem is some additional server load trying to deliver that message, plus, possibly, bounces in your inbox.

However if, as in most cases, those addresses actually belong to someone who didn’t write that comment in the first place, those people will be bothered. Plus, since the comment itself may appear in the verification message (the default setting), you will be considered a spammer. Even worse, this might get your server blacklisted!

So if you’ve been using the plugin, please download the new version 0.1.2.1

Due to excessive work-load this post was written two days after the release of the bugfix which was available through your WordPress admin area immediately. I have set the date of this post back to approximately the time of the bugfix release.

Nils asked me whether I knew about a WordPress plugin that would verify a comment author’s e-mail address. I didn’t, so I wrote one myself.

The plugin is in its early stages, the current version number is 0.1 – you are welcome to test-drive it and watch it grow, or watch me procrastinate and forget about it over my day-job :/ if I do, go ahead and nag!