CVS Tutorial

Prepare your environment

Decide where your repositry should store its files. In this tutorial we use /home/pse4/cvsroot. Create this directory. Make sure that every member of the team has access to the directory.

Make sure that every team member's .login file contatins the following instructions:

setenv EDITOR nedit
setenv CVSROOT /home/pse4/cvsroot

replace /home/pse4/cvsroot with the location that you have choosen.

Depending on your system configuration you need to logout and re-login to activate the changes.
Verify the changes with the commands: echo $CVSROOT $EDITOR

Initialize the repositry

issue the following command: cvs init

Import content

Change your working directory to the location where your have stored your source files (or directory stubs).
issue the following command: cvs import -m "initial import" pse team4 start
replace pse according to your needs (it's the title of the import)

Let's work

change to your favourite working directory (eg. /scratch/subdir or /vat/tmp/subdir).
Get the files with: cvs checkout pse
Modify the files. Add new files with cvs add filename.
From time to time, check if your team mates have made some changes. In the pse directory type: cvs update.
When you have finished your modifications share them with your team members. Type cvs commit -m "comment of the change". This will save your modifications of all files in the current directory and its subdirectories. When cvs was successful you can delete your working copy.

Good to know

• binary files must be added with the parameter -kb (see the documentation)
• use the PCL CVS mode in XEmacs 21
  (add module load xemacs in your .login file, then choose Tools->PCL CVS)
• you can specify options in a .cvsrc file
• the cvs tag command can be used create releases

Links

CVS User's Guide
A Free CVS Book
CVS Tutorial
Another CVS tutorial
Yet another CVS tutorial (a little old, but nice)
An old but very useful FAQ about CVS