Why should one use RCS?

• Keep history of changes to program so can revert to older versions and generate patches
• Arbitrate file usage between multiple users

Basic concepts

• RCS repository: either foo,v or RCS/foo,v
• Checking files in and out
• Locks

Basic commands

ci

checks in and removes existing copy

ci -u

checks in and releases lock (file becomes read-only)

ci -l

checks in and retains lock (file is rw)

co

checks out with no lock (read-only)

co -u

checks out with no lock (read-only)

co -l

checks out and obtains exclusive lock

rlog

look at log

rcsdiff

compare revisions and create patches. Example:

	rcsdiff -r1.4 -u foo.c
	

rcs -u

break locks

rcs

do random things to rcs file

Lots of other options

• History trees
• Merging versions
• Symbolic version names
• For info, read man pages:
  • rcsintro, rcsdiff, ci, co, rcs, rcsmerge

Logs and headers in files

• Put strings into files and RCS will expand them:

  	$