Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.


Tracking third-party sources

If you modify a program to better fit your site, you probably want to include your modifications when the next release of the program arrives. CVS can help you with this task.

In the terminology used in CVS, the supplier of the program is called a vendor. The unmodified distribution from the vendor is checked in on its own branch, the vendor branch. CVS reserves branch 1.1.1 for this use.

When you modify the source and commit it, your revision will end up on the main trunk. When a new release is made by the vendor, you commit it on the vendor branch and copy the modifications onto the main trunk.

Use the import command to create and update the vendor branch. After a successful import the vendor branch is made the `head' revision, so anyone that checks out a copy of the file gets that revision. When a local modification is committed it is placed on the main trunk, and made the `head' revision.

Importing a module for the first time

Use the import command to check in the sources for the first time. When you use the import command to track third-party sources, the vendor tag and release tags are useful. The vendor tag is a symbolic name for the branch (which is always 1.1.1, unless you use the `-b branch' flag---See section import options). The release tags are symbolic names for a particular release, such as `FSF_0_04'.

Suppose you use wdiff (a variant of diff that ignores changes that only involve whitespace), and are going to make private modifications that you want to be able to use even when new releases are made in the future. You start by importing the source to your repository:

$ tar xfz wdiff-0.04.tar.gz
$ cd wdiff-0.04
$ cvs import -m "Import of FSF v. 0.04" fsf/wdiff FSF_DIST WDIFF_0_04

The vendor tag is named `FSF_DIST' in the above example, and the only release tag assigned is `WDIFF_0_04'.

Updating a module with the import command

When a new release of the source arrives, you import it into the repository with the same import command that you used to set up the repository in the first place. The only difference is that you specify a different release tag this time.

$ tar xfz wdiff-0.05.tar.gz
$ cd wdiff-0.05
$ cvs import -m "Import of FSF v. 0.05" fsf/wdiff FSF_DIST WDIFF_0_05

For files that have not been modified locally, the newly created revision becomes the head revision. If you have made local changes, import will warn you that you must merge the changes into the main trunk, and tell you to use `checkout -j' to do so.

$ cvs checkout -jFSF_DIST:yesterday -jFSF_DIST wdiff

The above command will check out the latest revision of `wdiff', merging the changes made on the vendor branch `FSF_DIST' since yesterday into the working copy. If any conflicts arise during the merge they should be resolved in the normal way (see section Conflicts example). Then, the modified files may be committed.

Using a date, as suggested above, assumes that you do not import more than one release of a product per day. If you do, you can always use something like this instead:

$ cvs checkout -jWDIFF_0_04 -jWDIFF_0_05 wdiff

In this case, the two above commands are equivalent.

How to handle binary files with cvs import

Use the `-k' wrapper option to tell import which files are binary. See section The cvswrappers file.


Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.