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      1 Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1992 17:05:23 +0200
      2 From: Steven.Pemberton (a] cwi.nl
      3 Message-Id: <9206161505.AA06927.steven (a] sijs.cwi.nl>
      4 To: berliner (a] Sun.COM
      5 Subject: cvs
      6 
      7 INTRODUCTION TO USING CVS
      8 
      9     CVS is a system that lets groups of people work simultaneously on
     10     groups of files (for instance program sources).
     11 
     12     It works by holding a central 'repository' of the most recent version
     13     of the files.  You may at any time create a personal copy of these
     14     files; if at a later date newer versions of the files are put in the
     15     repository, you can 'update' your copy.
     16 
     17     You may edit your copy of the files freely. If new versions of the
     18     files have been put in the repository in the meantime, doing an update
     19     merges the changes in the central copy into your copy.
     20 	(It can be that when you do an update, the changes in the
     21 	central copy clash with changes you have made in your own
     22 	copy. In this case cvs warns you, and you have to resolve the
     23 	clash in your copy.)
     24 
     25     When you are satisfied with the changes you have made in your copy of
     26     the files, you can 'commit' them into the central repository.
     27 	(When you do a commit, if you haven't updated to the most
     28 	recent version of the files, cvs tells you this; then you have
     29 	to first update, resolve any possible clashes, and then redo
     30 	the commit.)
     31 
     32 USING CVS
     33 
     34     Suppose that a number of repositories have been stored in
     35     /usr/src/cvs. Whenever you use cvs, the environment variable
     36     CVSROOT must be set to this (for some reason):
     37 
     38 	CVSROOT=/usr/src/cvs
     39 	export CVSROOT
     40 
     41 TO CREATE A PERSONAL COPY OF A REPOSITORY
     42 
     43     Suppose you want a copy of the files in repository 'views' to be
     44     created in your directory src. Go to the place where you want your
     45     copy of the directory, and do a 'checkout' of the directory you
     46     want:
     47 
     48 	cd $HOME/src
     49 	cvs checkout views
     50 
     51     This creates a directory called (in this case) 'views' in the src
     52     directory, containing a copy of the files, which you may now work
     53     on to your heart's content.
     54 
     55 TO UPDATE YOUR COPY
     56 
     57     Use the command 'cvs update'.
     58 
     59     This will update your copy with any changes from the central
     60     repository, telling you which files have been updated (their names
     61     are displayed with a U before them), and which have been modified
     62     by you and not yet committed (preceded by an M). You will be
     63     warned of any files that contain clashes, the clashes will be
     64     marked in the file surrounded by lines of the form <<<< and >>>>.
     65    
     66 TO COMMIT YOUR CHANGES
     67 
     68     Use the command 'cvs commit'.
     69 
     70     You will be put in an editor to make a message that describes the
     71     changes that you have made (for future reference). Your changes
     72     will then be added to the central copy.
     73 
     74 ADDING AND REMOVING FILES
     75 
     76     It can be that the changes you want to make involve a completely
     77     new file, or removing an existing one. The commands to use here
     78     are:
     79 
     80 	cvs add <filename>
     81 	cvs remove <filename>
     82 
     83     You still have to do a commit after these commands. You may make
     84     any number of new files in your copy of the repository, but they
     85     will not be committed to the central copy unless you do a 'cvs add'.
     86 
     87 OTHER USEFUL COMMANDS AND HINTS
     88 
     89     To see the commit messages for files, and who made them, use:
     90 
     91 	cvs log [filenames]
     92 
     93     To see the differences between your version and the central version:
     94 
     95 	cvs diff [filenames]
     96 
     97     To give a file a new name, rename it and do an add and a remove.
     98 
     99     To lose your changes and go back to the version from the
    100     repository, delete the file and do an update.
    101 
    102     After an update where there have been clashes, your original
    103     version of the file is saved as .#file.version.
    104 
    105     All the cvs commands mentioned accept a flag '-n', that doesn't do
    106     the action, but lets you see what would happen. For instance, you
    107     can use 'cvs -n update' to see which files would be updated.
    108 
    109 MORE INFORMATION
    110 
    111     This is necessarily a very brief introduction. See the manual page
    112     (man cvs) for full details.
    113