NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

-f[rev]
forces a deposit; the new revision is deposited even it is not different from the preceding one.
-k[rev]
searches the working file for keyword values to determine its revision number, creation date, state, and author (see co(1)), and assigns these values to the deposited revision, rather than computing them locally. It also generates a default login message noting the login of the caller and the actual checkin date. This option is useful for software distribution. A revision that is sent to several sites should be checked in with the -k option at these sites to preserve the original number, date, author, and state. The extracted keyword values and the default log message can be overridden with the options -d, -m, -s, -w, and any option that carries a revision number.
-q[rev]
quiet mode; diagnostic output is not printed. A revision that is not different from the preceding one is not deposited, unless -f is given.
-i[rev]
initial checkin; report an error if the RCS file already exists. This avoids race conditions in certain applications.
-j[rev]
just checkin and do not initialize; report an error if the RCS file does not already exist.
-I[rev]
interactive mode; the user is prompted and questioned even if the standard input is not a terminal.
-d[date]
uses date for the checkin date and time. The date is specified in free format as explained in co(1). This is useful for lying about the checkin date, and for -k if no date is available. If date is empty, the working file's time of last modification is used.
-M[rev]
Set the modification time on any new working file to be the date of the retrieved revision. For example, ci -d -M -u f does not alter f's modification time, even if f's contents change due to keyword substitution. Use this option with care; it can confuse make(1).
-mmsg
uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked in. By convention, log messages that start with # are comments and are ignored by programs like GNU Emacs's vc package. Also, log messages that start with {clumpname} (followed by white space) are meant to be clumped together if possible, even if they are associated with different files; the {clumpname} label is used only for clumping, and is not considered to be part of the log message itself.
-nname
assigns the symbolic name name to the number of the checked-in revision. ci prints an error message if name is already assigned to another number.
-Nname
same as -n, except that it overrides a previous assignment of name.
-sstate
sets the state of the checked-in revision to the identifier state. The default state is Exp.
-tfile
writes descriptive text from the contents of the named file into the RCS file, deleting the existing text. The file cannot begin with -.
-t-string
Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, deleting the existing text.

The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an initial checkin; it is silently ignored otherwise.

During the initial checkin, if -t is not given, ci obtains the text from standard input, terminated by end-of-file or by a line containing . by itself. The user is prompted for the text if interaction is possible; see -I.

For backward compatibility with older versions of RCS, a bare -t option is ignored.

-T
Set the RCS file's modification time to the new revision's time if the former precedes the latter and there is a new revision; preserve the RCS file's modification time otherwise. If you have locked a revision, ci usually updates the RCS file's modification time to the current time, because the lock is stored in the RCS file and removing the lock requires changing the RCS file. This can create an RCS file newer than the working file in one of two ways: first, ci -M can create a working file with a date before the current time; second, when reverting to the previous revision the RCS file can change while the working file remains unchanged. These two cases can cause excessive recompilation caused by a make(1) dependency of the working file on the RCS file. The -T option inhibits this recompilation by lying about the RCS file's date. Use this option with care; it can suppress recompilation even when a checkin of one working file should affect another working file associated with the same RCS file. For example, suppose the RCS file's time is 01:00, the (changed) working file's time is 02:00, some other copy of the working file has a time of 03:00, and the current time is 04:00. Then ci -d -T sets the RCS file's time to 02:00 instead of the usual 04:00; this causes make(1) to think (incorrectly) that the other copy is newer than the RCS file.
-wlogin
uses login for the author field of the deposited revision. Useful for lying about the author, and for -k if no author is available.
-V
Print RCS's version number.
-Vn
Emulate RCS version n. See co(1) for details.
-xsuffixes
specifies the suffixes for RCS files. A nonempty suffix matches any pathname ending in the suffix. An empty suffix matches any pathname of the form RCS/path or path1/RCS/path2. The -x option can specify a list of suffixes separated by /. For example, -x,v/ specifies two suffixes: ,v and the empty suffix. If two or more suffixes are specified, they are tried in order when looking for an RCS file; the first one that works is used for that file. If no RCS file is found but an RCS file can be created, the suffixes are tried in order to determine the new RCS file's name. The default for suffixes is installation-dependent; normally it is ,v/ for hosts like Unix that permit commas in filenames, and is empty (i.e. just the empty suffix) for other hosts.
-zzone
specifies the date output format in keyword substitution, and specifies the default time zone for date in the -ddate option. The zone should be empty, a numeric UTC offset, or the special string LT for local time. The default is an empty zone, which uses the traditional RCS format of UTC without any time zone indication and with slashes separating the parts of the date; otherwise, times are output in ISO 8601 format with time zone indication. For example, if local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm Pacific Standard Time, eight hours west of UTC, then the time is output as follows:

The -z option does not affect dates stored in RCS files, which are always UTC.

FILE NAMING

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SETUID USE

ENVIRONMENT

DIAGNOSTICS

IDENTIFICATION

SEE ALSO