Who
is this for
This is for developers who are looking for ways to
track changes to their programs
What you need to know Unix,
Linux or Windows commands
Introduction You needed to
revise your program. You got the source and began changing a lot of
codes. You ran it and it did not work. Did more changes and tested
it, and it worked but what used to work did not! How are you to check
what revisions you did? Unless you document properly all your
changes, you have to eyeball your current program with the original
one. (This is assuming that you did backup your
source).
Concurrent Versions System (CVS) Fortunately,
there is a version control tool that is used in the Unix/Linux world.
You can also use this in Windows. CVS is basically a change control
system. It allows you to save your original source, make changes to a
copy of your source, document the changes and then implement these
changes. It also allows you to share a copy of a source among the
team. If a person changes one part of the code and you change another
part of the code, it can consolidate these two changes or it will
report of any conflicts between the two changes.
Where Can
I get CVS If you are using Unix or Linux, you will need to
install CVS and RCS on your system. You can get the Linux/Unix
version from www.cvshome.org.
If you are using RedHat or Mandrake, you can use the RPM file to
install it. If you are using Windows, you can have a cvs for Windows
at www.cvsnt.org. The
installation process depends on how you got your source so will not
be covered in this article.
Setting up your session for
CVS You will need to pre-define several variables before you
can begin using CVS. Before you start, you need to define the CVSROOT
variable. This identifies where your CVS repository is. If your
installation has cvs working, you can proceed to use it. If not, you
have to initialize the repository. You do this by going to your
CVSROOT, then issue the init parameter:
This initializes your
repository.
Registering your source code Assuming
that you are working on a project that has several source codes, you
will need to register these to the repository. You do this by going
to the directory where your source codes are and import these to the
repository.
cvs
import projectname vendorTag ReleaseTag
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You have to specify the vendorTag
and ReleaseTag even you will not be using them. When you issue
this command, cvs will start a text editor and you can enter
your comments for this import process.
Editing your
source You can still edit your existing source code but
cvswill not allow you to check it into the repository. This is
a safety mechanism to prevent you from changing your codes without
control. The only way to edit your code is to check out your code.
You have to go to the directory where you want to save your
checked-out code and type in this command:
cvs
checkout projectname/programname
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If you omit the programname,
cvs checks out the entire directory. Once you have checked out your
programs, you can edit them.
Checking in your code After
editing your code, you have to test it and make sure that it works.
This is very basic but one will be surprised that there's a lot of
people so confident of their work that they do not test them. Once
you're satisfied that it works, you can check in the code(s) back to
the repository. You do this through this command:
cvs
commit projectname/programname
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During the check in process, cvs
will fire off your editor and have you put in comments for this round
of revision. Make your comments understandable. Terminate the editor
and the program(s) will be checked into the repository.
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