CVS Notes

Some introductory notes on cvs are here:

http://www.elvenware.com/charlie/linux/LinuxNFSSambaCVS.html#cvs

The cvs home page is here:

CVS Tools

Windows front ends:

Docs

Logging into a CVS PServer

It is possible you will have to sign on to cvs on the server once before you start. If so, here is the command: 

cvs -d :pserver:UserName@Server:/usr/local/cvsrep login

You will be prompted for your password on xwin. If all goes well, the command will return with no comment. No "Success," or anything else. You are just returned to the prompt.

Creating a CVS Project

cvs import -m "initial import into cvs" cacheguide ccalvert start

Checking out a CVS Project

The command to get a project from cvs would be: 

cvs checkout MediaPlayer

You want to issue the command from the directory beneath where you want your project to reside. For instance, if your project were called MediaPlayer and it was in the c:\src directory, then issuing the command from that location would put the files in the c:\src\MediaPlayer directory.

You might to spend some time making sure that all the files have regular capitalization. That is, there are no files called MYFILE.PAS or myfile.PAS or MYFILE.pas, they should all follow standard camelcaps MyFile.pas, or else they should all be in small letters. Check in particular for one you have called ServerMAIN.pas, and a few that have .PAS as extensions. In general, you should probably merge your current content into the files in the project, that way the caps that I have established should be preserved. In other words, don't just copy your files over mine. It would definitely help if you could set things up so that these capitalizations are followed when you work with the project. If you get them set up once, correctly, then it should continue to follow them from there on out. If you add new files to the project, it would help to get the caps right before adding them to CVS. Probably best to keep the project off Windows 98 during development, as Win98 is bad about caps. But it you get it set up right once, then do the checkout to Win98, then it should be okay.

Committing your work

Here is the command to commit your work at the end of the day: 

cvs commit -m "Here is my work for today"

Getting Updates

Here is the command to get updates that I might have added, or to update one machine if you have done a commit from another machine: 

cvs update

Adding Files

Here is the command to add a file:

cvs add MyFile.pas

Removing Files

Here is the command to remove a file: 

cvs remove MyFile.pas

Getting the Status of a File

Here is the command to check on the status of a file: 

cvs status MyFile.pas

Making a file Binary after its been Checked In

Here is the command to make a file binary if it is not listed as binary in the repository: 

cvs admin -kb MyFile.gif

I have made all the files text files except for those with an res, ico, gif or bmp extension. They are all binary.

You can go to the cvswrappers file in the CVSROOT directory on the server and specify all the files that you want to be binary by default.

The DFM files are all text. One file in our project, called About.dfm, was a binary dfm, I converted it to text before putting it in the repository. To check if the file is text or not, right click on it in the IDE, and make sure Save as text is checked.

I did not put any of the cfg, kof, dsk, etc, files in the repository. I did put dpr, pas, dfm, res, and any bitmaps in the repository.

Automating CVS from the Command Line

Here is the batch file I run before accessing the project: 

@echo off
d:
cd "D:\srcpas\middleearth\elves\multimedia\mediaPlayer"
set HOME=C:\Documents and Settings\administrator
set HOMEPATH=\Documents and Settings\administrator
set HOMEDRIVE=d:
set USER=charlie
set CVSROOT=:pserver:charlie@MyServer:/usr/local/cvsrep
c:\utilities\tcl\bin\wish83.exe c:\bin\tkcvs.tcl

The last line depends on TKCVS, a visual front end for CVS. You may or may not find it helpful. Additional information on TKCVS is provided at the link found at the top of this article.

Initialising a CVS reposity for PSERVER

If you have installed CVS, you still have to initialize the directory from which you want to serve files:

cvs -d /usr/local/cvsrep init

Though its probably there already, make sure /etc/services contains: 

cvspserver 2401/tcp

Add this to /etc/xinetd.d, in a file called cvs (/etc/xinetd.d/cvs):

service cvspserver
{
        disable = no
        socket_type     = stream
        protocol        = tcp
        wait            = no
        user            = root
        server          = /usr/bin/cvs
        server_args     = --allow-root=/home/development/cvsfred -f pserver
}

> repository (i.e. commit, tag, etc.) gives the "can't chdir..." error

The problem is you forgot the -f from this line xinetd:

server_args     = --allow-root=/home/development/cvsfred -f pserver