GNU Info

(cvsbook.info)Invoking CVS

---

Next: Accessing A Repository Prev: Conventions Used In This Tour Up: A Day With CVS

---

Enter node , (file) or (file)node

Invoking CVS
------------

CVS is one program, but it can perform many different actions: updating,
committing, branching, diffing, and so on.  When you invoke CVS, you
must specify which action you want to perform.  Thus, the format of a
CVS invocation is:

     floss$ cvs command

For example, you can use

     floss$ cvs update
     floss$ cvs diff
     floss$ cvs commit

and so on.  (Don't bother to try running any of those particular
commands yet, though; they won't do anything until you're in a working
copy, which we'll get to shortly.)

Both CVS and the command can take options.  Options that affect the
behavior of CVS, independently of the command being run, are called
global options; command-specific options are just called command
options.  Global options always go to the left of the command; command
options, to its right.  So in

     floss$ cvs -Q update -p

-Q is a global option, and -p is a command option.  (If you're curious,
-Q means "quietly"-that is, suppress all diagnostic output, and print
error messages only if the command absolutely cannot be completed for
some reason; -p means to send the results of update to standard output
instead of to files.)