Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:50:23 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: being root Message-ID: <199803231850.KAA11227@pau-amma.whistle.com>
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>Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 05:32:03 +1100
>From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au>
>Eh? What's this RCS business?
pau-amma[2]% apropos rcs | grep RCS
ci(1) - check in RCS revisions
co(1) - check out RCS revisions
ident(1) - identify RCS keyword strings in files
rcs(1) - change RCS file attributes
rcsdiff(1) - compare RCS revisions
rcsfile(5) - format of RCS file
rcsfreeze(1) - freeze a configuration of sources checked in under RCS
rcsintro(1) - introduction to RCS commands
rcsmerge(1) - merge RCS revisions
rlog(1) - print log messages and other information about RCS files
pau-amma[3]%
RCS ("Revision Control System", written by Walt Tichy) is a
freely-redistributable (and comes as part of FreeBSD) set of programs
for keeping track of changes to files.
It was intended, as I recall, to be used for tracking changes to sources
for programs... but that doesn't mean that it's limited to that!
>What do you mean "track the changes"?
Well, I mean keeping a log of what changes ocurred, when by whom, and
(ideally) for what reason.
Here's an example:
pau-amma[3]% rlog /etc/rc.conf
RCS file: /etc/RCS/rc.conf,v
Working file: /etc/rc.conf
head: 1.4
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 4; selected revisions: 4
description:
Config file, as system was running on 10 March, 1998.
----------------------------
revision 1.4
date: 1998-03-12 10:46:43-08; author: dhw; state: Exp; lines: +2 -2
Enabled lpd.
----------------------------
revision 1.3
date: 1998-03-11 07:11:09-08; author: dhw; state: Exp; lines: +2 -2
Forgot to remove the extraneous "p" in the amd_flags.
----------------------------
revision 1.2
date: 1998-03-10 17:18:20-08; author: dhw; state: Exp; lines: +3 -6
Changes to use NIS amd maps.
----------------------------
revision 1.1
date: 1998-03-10 17:17:58-08; author: dhw; state: Exp;
Initial revision
----------------------------
=============================================================================
pau-amma[4]%
>Is there a good way to start learning about it without getting early onset
>brain-burn?
Well... :-) No guarantees re: brain-burn... :-)
However, of the man pages referenced above, the critical commands
for the vast bulk of RCS use in my experience are ci, co, rlog,
rcsdiff, and (to a lesser extent) rcs. The rcsintro man page would
undoubtedly be useful.
Also: The Jeffreys had an article in SunExpert around July or so of
last year about using RCS, and there's an O'Reilly book: Bolinger, Don
& Bronson, Tan: _Applying RCS and SCCS_, August, 1995 (ISBN
1-56592-117-8).
One of the other nice things that using RCS religiously does is provide
a way to cleanly un-do changes that turn out to have been ill-advised.
The FreeBSD project uses CVS ("Cocurrent Versioning System", by Brian
Berliner) to track the changes made to FreeBSD... and CVS is built on
top of RCS. However, for a single installation, I suspect that CVS is a
bit of overkill....
Cheers,
david
--
David Wolfskill dhw@whistle.com (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 401-0168
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