From owner-freebsd-newbies Mon Mar 23 10:51:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA07773 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:51:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from whistle.com (s205m131.whistle.com [207.76.205.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA07700 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:51:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dhw@whistle.com) Received: (from smap@localhost) by whistle.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id KAA11899 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:50:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from pau-amma.whistle.com(207.76.205.64) by whistle.com via smap (V1.3) id sma011897; Mon Mar 23 10:50:23 1998 Received: (from dhw@localhost) by pau-amma.whistle.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA11227 for freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:50:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dhw) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:50:23 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill Message-Id: <199803231850.KAA11227@pau-amma.whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: being root Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 05:32:03 +1100 >From: Sue Blake >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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message