Using CVS

1. revision control
2. keeping track of the changes between revisions
3. development of software by more than one researcher
4. easy sharing of the up-to-date sources

Cervisia is a wonderfull GUI to use with CVS, which make life even easier. The following are the basic steps to start using cvs as summarized by Bee Leong:

Example of a CVS repository structure :

$CVSROOT = /local/scratch/cvsroot 

$CVSROOT 
|+--comms_it++ 
|       | 
|       +--ldpc 
|       |       | 
        |       +--Makefile,v 
        |       +--ldpc_prog.cpp,v 
        ! 
        +--kalman 
                | 
                +--Makefile,v 
                +--kalman.cpp,v 
                +--OFDM 
                |       |--pilot-estimator.cpp,v 
                +--MC-CDMA 
                !       |--mc-cdma-estimator.cpp,v 

1. Tell CVS where to find the repository. So in the
.bashrc of your home directory, add these 2 lines:

$> export CVS_RSH='/local/<your-user-name>/.ssh/ssh-cvs'
$> export CVSROOT=:ext:prma:/local/cvsroot

Save the .bashrc file and type source ~/.bashrc, or start a new terminal window

2. To import a working directory into CVS

Say for example you have a directory called ldpc already:

$> cd ldpc 
$> cvs import -m "Imported sources" comms_it++/ldpc ldpc start

3. To checkout:

 cvs checkout ldpc 

This will create a directory called comms_it++ and populate the directory with source files.

$> cd ldpc 
$> ls CVS Makefile ldpc_prog.cpp 

4. To check in after making changes and while you are in the directory ldpc:

$> cvs commit -m "Added ldpc (N,M)" ldpc_prog.cpp

5. To remove working copy in your PC after checking in:

$> cd .. 
$> cvs release -d ldpc 

CVS will check to see what files have been changed since they were checked out. To play it safe you can do

$> cd ldpc 
$> cvs diff ldpc_prog.cpp

This will show you the difference between the file in your working directory and that in the repository. If there is a difference, then check in the file first before doing the `cvs -d release' command.
6. To tag a release:

$> cvs tag release-1-0 .

and to checkout a particular release

$> cvs checkout -r release tc 

7. To ADD files/directories to the repository

$> cvs add ldpc_new_program.cpp 

But before you commit, other developers will not be able to see it. So you must also

$> cvs commit -m "New ldpc program doing ..." ldpc_new_program.cpp 

when you feel that the program is ready.
8. To REMOVE files/directories to the repository

$> cd ldpc 
$> rm *.cpp 
$> cvs remove 
cvs remove: Removing . 
cvs remove: scheduling Makefile for removal 
cvs remove: scheduling ldpc_prog.cpp for removal 
cvs remove: use 'cvs commit' to remove this files permanently 

$> cvs ci -m "Remove unneeded files" 
cvs commit: Examining . 
cvs commit: Committing . 

NOTE: Before commiting, you can still undo the remove command:

$> cd ldpc 
$> rm *.cpp 
$> cvs remove 
cvs remove: Removing . 
cvs remove: scheduling Makefile for removal 
cvs remove: scheduling ldpc_prog.cpp for removal 
cvs remove: use 'cvs commit' to remove this files permanently 

$>cvs add ldpc_prog.cpp 
U ldpc_prog.cpp 
cvs add: ldpc_prog.cpp, version 1.1.1., resurrected 

Or if you realise your mistake before the cvs remove stage, you can
do:

$> cd ldpc 
$> rm *.cpp 
$> cvs update ldpc_prog.cpp 
cvs update: warning ldpc_prog.cpp was lost 
U ldpc_prog.cpp