Chapter 15. CVS
The Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is the most popular revision control system among users of free and open source software. It is particularly appropriate for highly distributed projects, with developers working on many different computer systems and even in different parts of the world.
This chapter is based on CVS Version 1.11.2.
Basic Concepts
To accommodate large projects using a hierarchy of several directories, CVS defines the concepts repository and sandbox .
The repository (also called an archive ) is the centralized storage area that stores the projects’ files. It is managed by the version control system and the repository administrator, and contains information required to reconstruct historical versions of the files in a project. An administrator sets up and controls the repository using the procedures and commands described later in Section 15.5.
A sandbox (also called a working directory ) contains copies of versions of files from the repository. New development occurs in sandboxes, and any number of sandboxes may be created from a single repository. The sandboxes are independent of one another and may contain files from different stages of the development of the same project. Users set up and control sandboxes using the procedures and commands found in the later Section 15.6.
In a typical interaction with CVS, a developer checks out the most current code from the repository, makes changes, tests the results, and then commits those changes back to ...
Get Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
