Essence of CVS

Author: (Australia) Vesperman (Vesperman/J.) / O'Reilly Taiwan Company
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: If you are a programmer, web developer, writer, or a specialist who must handle large volumes of files, you should be well aware of the frustration of managing multiple versions of many files, especially when you need to collaborate with others on these files. Who modified which file and when? Which versions of which files make up the product being released for sale? Will you encounter a conflict when editing a file while someone else is also editing it? These are just a few of the many issues you will face. CVS is the solution for such problems in the open-source world. This source code management tool creates repositories for files, allowing you to collaborate with others in managing them. You and others can check out files you want to edit, make any necessary changes, and then check them back in. When multiple people edit the same file, CVS will try its best to automatically merge the changes; if it cannot resolve conflicts, it will highlight the sources causing the conflicts. In either case, you don’t have to worry about accidentally overwriting or deleting files while editing. CVS is a fully functional tool, and in addition to the above features, it can do much more. For example, before releasing a version of software, you can use tags to mark the versions of source code files included in that version. This way, you can later retrieve the same files to rebuild the software version. In this book, the authors will explain how to use the basic functions of CVS and guide you step-by-step in using it. This applies whether you are using or managing CVS. The book covers the following topics:
- A quick guide to help you install CVS and quickly learn its basic usage.
- Chapters on advanced topics, including tagging, group development, and various methods for connecting to remote repositories.
- Detailed instructions for CVS repository administrators, discussing repository and project management methods, demonstrating how to manage multi-user environments, and explaining other CVS client programs and management tools.
- A complete reference on CVS commands, configuration file syntax, files and variables in the CVSROOT directory, and environment variables for use with CVS.
- A quick reference card to easily check the syntax of common CVS commands.
If you are a programmer, web developer, writer, or a specialist who must handle large volumes of files, you should be well aware of the frustration of managing multiple versions of many files, especially when you need to collaborate with others on these files. Who modified which file and when? Which versions of which files make up the product being released for sale? Will you encounter a conflict when editing a file while someone else is also editing it? These are just a few of the many issues you will face. CVS is the solution for such problems in the open-source world. This source code management tool creates repositories for files, allowing you to collaborate with others in managing them. You and others can check out files you want to edit, make any necessary changes, and then check them back in. When multiple people edit the same file, CVS will try its best to automatically merge the changes; if it cannot resolve conflicts, it will highlight the sources causing the conflicts. In either case, you don’t have to worry about accidentally overwriting or deleting files while editing. CVS is a fully functional tool, and in addition to the above features, it can do much more. For example, before releasing a version of software, you can use tags to mark the versions of source code files included in that version. This way, you can later retrieve the same files to rebuild the software version. In this book, the authors will explain how to use the basic functions of CVS and guide you step-by-step in using it. This applies whether you are using or managing CVS. The book covers the following topics:
● A quick guide to help you install CVS and quickly learn its basic usage.
● Chapters on advanced topics, including tagging, group development, and various methods for connecting to remote repositories.
● Detailed instructions for CVS repository administrators, discussing repository and project management methods, demonstrating how to manage multi-user environments, and explaining other CVS client programs and management tools.
● A complete reference on CVS commands, configuration file syntax, files and variables in the CVSROOT directory, and environment variables for use with CVS.
● A quick reference card to easily check the syntax of common CVS commands.