Linux in a Nutshell, Third Edition

The CVS Utility

This section offers general background about CVS.

CVS Command Format

CVS commands are of the form:

cvs global_options 
               command 
               command_options

For example, here is a simple sequence of commands showing both kinds of options in the context of creating a repository, importing existing files, and performing a few common operations on them:

user@localhost$ cvs -d /usr/local/cvsrep init
user@localhost$ cd ~/work/hello
user@localhost$ cvs -d /usr/local/cvsrep import -m 'Import' hello vendor start
user@localhost$ cd ..
user@localhost$ mv hello hello.bak
user@localhost$ cvs -d /usr/local/cvsrep checkout hello
user@localhost$ cd hello
user@localhost$ vi hello
user@localhost$ cvs commit -m 'Fixed a typo'
user@localhost$ cvs tag hello-1_0
user@localhost$ cvs remove -f Makefile
user@localhost$ cvs commit -m 'Removed old Makefile'
user@localhost$ cvs upd -r hello-1_0
user@localhost$ cvs upd -A

Some global options are common to both user and administrator commands, and some are specific to each of these. The common global options are described in the next section, and the user and administrator options are described in the Section 14.4 and Section 14.3 sections, respectively.

Common Global Options

Table 14.1 lists the global options that apply to both user and administrator commands.

Table 14-1. Common Global Options

Option	Description
-b bindir	Location of external RCS programs. This option is obsolete, having been deprecated at CVS versions above 1.9.18.
-T tempdir	Absolute path ...