The RCS commands

From:
RCS - A System for Version Control
by Walter F. Tichy
(the manual supplied with the sources)

Note: these manuals were converted from the original Unix man-pages with the man2html tool. Although this tool saves a lot of work, the conversion is not perfect. Effort has been taken to make the html versions of the pages look as much like the original as is practically possible.

rcsintro - introduction to RCS commands (man page)

This manual page gets you up to speed with what RCS is all about.

ci - check in revisions (man page)

Ci stores the contents of a working file into the corresponding RCS file as a new revision. If the RCS file doesn't exist, ci creates it. Ci removes the working file, unless one of the options -u or -l is present. For each check-in, ci asks for a commentary describing the changes relative to the previous revision.

Ci assigns the revision number given by the -r option; if that option is missing, it derives the number from the lock held by the user; if there is no lock and locking is not strict, ci increments the number of the latest revision on the trunk. A side branch can only be started by explicitly specifying its number with the -r option during check-in.

Ci also determines whether the revision to be checked in is different from the previous one, and asks whether to proceed if it is not. This facility simplifies check-in operations for large systems, because one need not remember which files were changed.

The option -k searches the checked in file for identification markers containing the attributes revision number, check-in date, author and state, and assigns these to the new revision rather than computing them. This option is useful for software distribution: Recipients of distributed software using RCS should check in updates with the -k option. This convention guarantees that revision numbers, check-in dates, etc., are the same at all sites.

co - check out revisions (man page)

Co retrieves revisions according to revision number, date, author and state attributes. It either places the revision into the working file, or prints it on the standard output. Co always expands the identification markers.

ident - extract identification markers (man page)

Ident extracts the identification markers expanded by co from any file and prints them. This include executable files if the identification markers have been included e.g. as a string constant.

merge - three-way file merge (man page)

Merge incorporates all changes that lead from file2 to file3 into file1. The result ordinarily goes into file1. See also rcsmerge.

rcs - change RCS file attributes (man page)

Rcs is an administrative operation that changes access lists, locks, unlocks, breaks locks, toggles the strict-locking feature, sets state attributes and symbolic revision numbers, changes the description, and deletes revisions. A revision can only be deleted if it is not the fork of a side branch.

rcsclean - clean the working directory (man page)

Rcsclean removes working files that were checked out but never changed.

rcsdiff - compare revisions (man page)

Rcsdiff compares two revisions an prints their difference, using the Unix tool diff. One of the revisions compared may be already checked out. This command is useful for finding out about changes.

rcsfreeze - freeze a configuration (man page)

Rcsfreeze assigns the same symbolic revision number to a given revision in all RCS files. This command is useful for accurately recording a configuration. On Unix, this command is a shell script. Therefore it is not available on RISC OS.

rcsmerge - merge revisions (man page)

Rcsmerge merges two revisions, rev1 and rev2, with respect to a common ancestor. A 3-way file comparison determines the segments of lines that are (a) the same in all three revisions, or (b) the same in 2 revisions, or (c) different in all three. For all segments of type (b) where rev1 is the differing revision, the segment in rev1 replaces the corresponding segment of rev2. Type (c) indicates an overlapping change, is flagged as an error, and requires user intervention to select the correct alternative. Effectively, the changes in rev1 and the changes in rev2 are merged together into one file which has all the changes in it.

rlog - read log messages (man page)

Rlog prints the log messages and other information in an RCS file.

rcsfile - format of the RCS files (man page)

This is not a command. The manual page describes the format of the files in which RCS keeps track of the revisions of a file.

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