cvs
is a system for providing source control to hierarchical collections
of source directories. Commands and procedures for using cvs
are described in
cvs(1).
cvs
manages source repositories, the directories containing master
copies of the revision-controlled files, by copying particular
revisions of the files to (and modifications back from) developers'
private working directories. In terms of file structure, each
individual source repository is an immediate subdirectory of
$CVSROOT.
The files described here are supporting files; they do not have to
exist for cvs to operate, but they allow you to make cvs
operation more flexible.
You can use the `modules' file to define symbolic names for
collections of source maintained with cvs. If there is no
`modules' file, developers must specify complete path names
(absolute, or relative to $CVSROOT) for the files they wish to
manage with cvs commands.
You can use the `commitinfo' file to define programs to execute
whenever `cvs commit' is about to execute.
These programs are used for ``pre-commit'' checking to verify that the
modified, added, and removed files are really ready to be committed.
Some uses for this check might be to turn off a portion (or all) of the
source repository from a particular person or group.
Or, perhaps, to verify that the changed files conform to the site's
standards for coding practice.
You can use the `cvswrappers' file to record
cvs
wrapper commands to be used when checking files into and out of the
repository. Wrappers allow the file or directory to be processed
on the way in and out of CVS. The intended uses are many, one
possible use would be to reformat a C file before the file is checked
in, so all of the code in the repository looks the same.
You can use the `loginfo' file to define programs to execute after
any
commit,
which writes a log entry for changes in the repository.
These logging programs might be used to append the log message to a file.
Or send the log message through electronic mail to a group of developers.
Or, perhaps, post the log message to a particular newsgroup.
You can use the `taginfo' file to define programs to execute after
any
tagorrtag
operation. These programs might be used to append a message to a file
listing the new tag name and the programmer who created it, or send mail
to a group of developers, or, perhaps, post a message to a particular
newsgroup.
You can use the `rcsinfo' file to define forms for log messages.
You can use the `editinfo' file to define a program to execute for
editing/validating `cvs commit' log entries.
This is most useful when used with a `rcsinfo' forms specification, as
it can verify that the proper fields of the form have been filled in by the
user committing the change.
You can use the `cvsignore' file to specify the default list of
files to ignore during update.
You can use the `history' file to record the cvs commands
that affect the repository.
The creation of this file enables history logging.
FILES
modules
The `modules' file records your definitions of names for
collections of source code. cvs will use these definitions if
you use cvs to check in a file with the right format to
`$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/modules,v'.
The `modules' file may contain blank lines and comments (lines
beginning with `#') as well as module definitions.
Long lines can be continued on the next line by specifying a backslash
(``\'') as the last character on the line.
A module definition is a single line of the `modules' file,
in either of two formats. In both cases, mname represents the
symbolic module name, and the remainder of the line is its definition.
mname-aaliases...
This represents the simplest way of defining a module mname.
The `-a' flags the definition as a simple alias: cvs
will treat any use of mname (as a command argument) as if the list
of names aliases had been specified instead. aliases may
contain either other module names or paths. When you use paths in
aliases, `cvs checkout' creates all intermediate
directories in the working directory, just as if the path had been
specified explicitly in the cvs arguments.
mname [ options ] dir [ files... ] [ &module... ]
In the simplest case, this form of module definition reduces to
`mname dir'. This defines all the files in directory
dir as module mname. dir is a relative path (from
$CVSROOT) to a directory of source in one of the source
repositories. In this case, on checkout, a single directory
called mname is created as a working directory; no intermediate
directory levels are used by default, even if dir was a path
involving several directory levels.
By explicitly specifying files in the module definition after
dir, you can select particular files from directory
dir. The sample definition for modules is an example of
a module defined with a single file from a particular directory. Here
is another example:
m4test unsupported/gnu/m4 foreach.m4 forloop.m4
With this definition, executing `cvs checkout m4test'
will create a single working directory `m4test' containing the two
files listed, which both come from a common directory several levels
deep in the cvs source repository.
A module definition can refer to other modules by including
`&module' in its definition. checkout creates
a subdirectory for each such module, in your working directory.
New in cvs 1.3;
avoid this feature if sharing module definitions with older versions
of cvs.
Finally, you can use one or more of the following options in
module definitions:
`-dname', to name the working directory something
other than the module name.
New in cvs 1.3;
avoid this feature if sharing module definitions with older versions
of cvs.
`-iprog' allows you to specify a program prog
to run whenever files in a module are committed. prog runs with a
single argument, the full pathname of the affected directory in a
source repository. The `commitinfo', `loginfo', and
`editinfo' files provide other ways to call a program on commit.
`-oprog' allows you to specify a program prog
to run whenever files in a module are checked out. prog runs
with a single argument, the module name.
`-eprog' allows you to specify a program prog
to run whenever files in a module are exported. prog runs
with a single argument, the module name.
`-tprog' allows you to specify a program prog
to run whenever files in a module are tagged. prog runs with two
arguments: the module name and the symbolic tag specified to rtag.
`-uprog' allows you to specify a program prog
to run whenever `cvs update' is executed from the top-level
directory of the checked-out module. prog runs with a
single argument, the full path to the source repository for this module.
commitinfo, loginfo, rcsinfo, editinfo
These files all specify programs to call at different points in the
`cvs commit' process. They have a common structure.
Each line is a pair of fields: a regular expression, separated by
whitespace from a filename or command-line template.
Whenever one of the regular expression matches a directory name in the
repository, the rest of the line is used.
If the line begins with a # character, the entire line is considered
a comment and is ignored.
Whitespace between the fields is also ignored.
For `loginfo', the rest of the
line is a command-line template to execute.
The templates can include not only
a program name, but whatever list of arguments you wish. If you write
`%s' somewhere on the argument list, cvs supplies, at
that point, the list of files affected by the commit.
The first entry in the list is the relative path within the source
repository where the change is being made.
The remaining arguments list the files that are being modified, added, or
removed by this commit invocation.
For `taginfo', the rest of the
line is a command-line template to execute.
The arguments passed to the command are, in order, the
tagname ,operation
(i.e.
add
for `tag',
mov
for `tag -F', and
del
for `tag -d`),
repository ,
and any remaining are pairs of
filename revision .
A non-zero exit of the filter program will cause the tag to be aborted.
For `commitinfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to
execute.
The template can include not only a program name, but whatever
list of arguments you wish.
The full path to the current source repository is appended to the template,
followed by the file names of any files involved in the commit (added,
removed, and modified files).
For `rcsinfo', the rest of the line is the full path to a file that
should be loaded into the log message template.
For `editinfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to
execute.
The template can include not only a program name, but whatever
list of arguments you wish.
The full path to the current log message template file is appended to the
template.
You can use one of two special strings instead of a regular
expression: `ALL' specifies a command line template that
must always be executed, and `DEFAULT' specifies a command
line template to use if no regular expression is a match.
The `commitinfo' file contains commands to execute before any
other commit activity, to allow you to check any conditions that
must be satisfied before commit can proceed. The rest of the
commit will execute only if all selected commands from this file
exit with exit status 0.
The `rcsinfo' file allows you to specify log templates for
the commit logging session; you can use this to provide a form
to edit when filling out the commit log. The field after the
regular expression, in this file, contains filenames (of files
containing the logging forms) rather than command templates.
The `editinfo' file allows you to execute a script before the
commit starts, but after the log information is recorded. These
"edit" scripts can verify information recorded in the log file. If
the edit script exits wth a non-zero exit status, the commit is aborted.
The `loginfo' file contains commands to execute at the end
of a commit. The text specified as a commit log message is piped
through the command; typical uses include sending mail, filing an
article in a newsgroup, or appending to a central file.
cvsignore, .cvsignore
The default list of files (or
sh(1)
file name patterns) to ignore during `cvs update'.
At startup time, cvs loads the compiled in default list of file name
patterns (see
cvs(1)).
Then the per-repository list included in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvsignore
is loaded, if it exists.
Then the per-user list is loaded from `$HOME/.cvsignore'.
Finally, as cvs traverses through your directories, it will load any
per-directory `.cvsignore' files whenever it finds one.
These per-directory files are only valid for exactly the directory that
contains them, not for any sub-directories.
history
Create this file in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT to enable history logging
(see the description of `cvs history').
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