/contrib/cvs/contrib/intro.doc

  1Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1992 17:05:23 +0200
  2From: Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl
  3Message-Id: <9206161505.AA06927.steven@sijs.cwi.nl>
  4To: berliner@Sun.COM
  5Subject: cvs
  6
  7INTRODUCTION 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
 32USING 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
 41TO 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
 55TO 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   
 66TO 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
 74ADDING 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
 87OTHER 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
109MORE INFORMATION
110
111    This is necessarily a very brief introduction. See the manual page
112    (man cvs) for full details.