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cvs(5) File Formats Manual cvs(5)

NAME
cvs - Concurrent Versions System support files

NOTE
This documentation may no longer be up to date. Please consult the Cederqvist (CVS Manual)
as specified in cvs(1).

SYNOPSIS
$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/commitinfo,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvsignore,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvswrappers,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/editinfo,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/history

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/loginfo,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/modules,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/rcsinfo,v

$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/taginfo,v

DESCRIPTION
cvs is a system for providing source control to hierarchical collections of source directo‐
ries. Commands and procedures for using cvs are described in cvs(1).

cvs manages source repositories, the directories containing master copies of the revision-
controlled files, by copying particular revisions of the files to (and modifications back
from) developers' private working directories. In terms of file structure, each individual
source repository is an immediate subdirectory of $CVSROOT.

The files described here are supporting files; they do not have to exist for cvs to operate,
but they allow you to make cvs operation more flexible.

You can use the `modules' file to define symbolic names for collections of source maintained
with cvs. If there is no `modules' file, developers must specify complete path names (abso‐
lute, or relative to $CVSROOT) for the files they wish to manage with cvs commands.

You can use the `commitinfo' file to define programs to execute whenever `cvs commit' is
about to execute. These programs are used for ``pre-commit'' checking to verify that the
modified, added, and removed files are really ready to be committed. Some uses for this
check might be to turn off a portion (or all) of the source repository from a particular per‐
son or group. Or, perhaps, to verify that the changed files conform to the site's standards
for coding practice.

You can use the `cvswrappers' file to record cvs wrapper commands to be used when checking
files into and out of the repository. Wrappers allow the file or directory to be processed
on the way in and out of CVS. The intended uses are many, one possible use would be to re‐
format a C file before the file is checked in, so all of the code in the repository looks the
same.

You can use the `loginfo' file to define programs to execute after any commit, which writes a
log entry for changes in the repository. These logging programs might be used to append the
log message to a file. Or send the log message through electronic mail to a group of devel‐
opers. Or, perhaps, post the log message to a particular newsgroup.

You can use the `taginfo' file to define programs to execute after any tagorrtag operation.
These programs might be used to append a message to a file listing the new tag name and the
programmer who created it, or send mail to a group of developers, or, perhaps, post a message
to a particular newsgroup.

You can use the `rcsinfo' file to define forms for log messages.

You can use the `editinfo' file to define a program to execute for editing/validating `cvs
commit' log entries. This is most useful when used with a `rcsinfo' forms specification, as
it can verify that the proper fields of the form have been filled in by the user committing
the change.

You can use the `cvsignore' file to specify the default list of files to ignore during up‐‐
date.

You can use the `history' file to record the cvs commands that affect the repository. The
creation of this file enables history logging.

FILES
modules
The `modules' file records your definitions of names for collections of source code.
cvs will use these definitions if you use cvs to check in a file with the right format
to `$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/modules,v'.

The `modules' file may contain blank lines and comments (lines beginning with `#') as
well as module definitions. Long lines can be continued on the next line by specify‐
ing a backslash (``\'') as the last character on the line.

A module definition is a single line of the `modules' file, in either of two formats.
In both cases, mname represents the symbolic module name, and the remainder of the
line is its definition.

mname -a aliases...
This represents the simplest way of defining a module mname. The `-a' flags the defi‐
nition as a simple alias: cvs will treat any use of mname (as a command argument) as
if the list of names aliases had been specified instead. aliases may contain either
other module names or paths. When you use paths in aliases, `cvs checkout' creates
all intermediate directories in the working directory, just as if the path had been
specified explicitly in the cvs arguments.

mname [ options ] dir [ files... ] [ &module... ]

In the simplest case, this form of module definition reduces to `mname dir'. This de‐
fines all the files in directory dir as module mname. dir is a relative path (from
$CVSROOT) to a directory of source in one of the source repositories. In this case,
on checkout, a single directory called mname is created as a working directory; no in‐
termediate directory levels are used by default, even if dir was a path involving sev‐
eral directory levels.

By explicitly specifying files in the module definition after dir, you can select par‐
ticular files from directory dir. The sample definition for modules is an example of
a module defined with a single file from a particular directory. Here is another ex‐
ample:

m4test unsupported/gnu/m4 foreach.m4 forloop.m4

With this definition, executing `cvs checkout m4test' will create a single working di‐
rectory `m4test' containing the two files listed, which both come from a common direc‐
tory several levels deep in the cvs source repository.

A module definition can refer to other modules by including `&module' in its defini‐
tion. checkout creates a subdirectory for each such module, in your working directo‐
ry.
New in cvs 1.3; avoid this feature if sharing module definitions with older versions
of cvs.

Finally, you can use one or more of the following options in module definitions:

`-d name', to name the working directory something other than the module name.
New in cvs 1.3; avoid this feature if sharing module definitions with older versions
of cvs.

`-i prog' allows you to specify a program prog to run whenever files in a module are
committed. prog runs with a single argument, the full pathname of the affected direc‐
tory in a source repository. The `commitinfo', `loginfo', and `editinfo' files pro‐
vide other ways to call a program on commit.

`-o prog' allows you to specify a program prog to run whenever files in a module are
checked out. prog runs with a single argument, the module name.

`-e prog' allows you to specify a program prog to run whenever files in a module are
exported. prog runs with a single argument, the module name.

`-t prog' allows you to specify a program prog to run whenever files in a module are
tagged. prog runs with two arguments: the module name and the symbolic tag specified
to rtag.

`-u prog' allows you to specify a program prog to run whenever `cvs update' is execut‐
ed from the top-level directory of the checked-out module. prog runs with a single
argument, the full path to the source repository for this module.

commitinfo, loginfo, rcsinfo, editinfo
These files all specify programs to call at different points in the `cvs commit'
process. They have a common structure. Each line is a pair of fields: a regular ex‐
pression, separated by whitespace from a filename or command-line template. Whenever
one of the regular expression matches a directory name in the repository, the rest of
the line is used. If the line begins with a # character, the entire line is consid‐
ered a comment and is ignored. Whitespace between the fields is also ignored.

For `loginfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to execute. The tem‐
plates can include not only a program name, but whatever list of arguments you wish.
If you write `%s' somewhere on the argument list, cvs supplies, at that point, the
list of files affected by the commit. The first entry in the list is the relative
path within the source repository where the change is being made. The remaining argu‐
ments list the files that are being modified, added, or removed by this commit invoca‐
tion.

For `taginfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to execute. The argu‐
ments passed to the command are, in order, the tagname , operation (i.e. add for
`tag', mov for `tag -F', and del for `tag -d`), repository , and any remaining are
pairs of filename revision . A non-zero exit of the filter program will cause the tag
to be aborted.

For `commitinfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to execute. The
template can include not only a program name, but whatever list of arguments you wish.
The full path to the current source repository is appended to the template, followed
by the file names of any files involved in the commit (added, removed, and modified
files).

For `rcsinfo', the rest of the line is the full path to a file that should be loaded
into the log message template.

For `editinfo', the rest of the line is a command-line template to execute. The tem‐
plate can include not only a program name, but whatever list of arguments you wish.
The full path to the current log message template file is appended to the template.

You can use one of two special strings instead of a regular expression: `ALL' speci‐
fies a command line template that must always be executed, and `DEFAULT' specifies a
command line template to use if no regular expression is a match.

The `commitinfo' file contains commands to execute before any other commit activity,
to allow you to check any conditions that must be satisfied before commit can proceed.
The rest of the commit will execute only if all selected commands from this file exit
with exit status 0.

The `rcsinfo' file allows you to specify log templates for the commit logging session;
you can use this to provide a form to edit when filling out the commit log. The field
after the regular expression, in this file, contains filenames (of files containing
the logging forms) rather than command templates.

The `editinfo' file allows you to execute a script before the commit starts, but after
the log information is recorded. These "edit" scripts can verify information recorded
in the log file. If the edit script exits with a non-zero exit status, the commit is
aborted.

The `loginfo' file contains commands to execute at the end of a commit. The text
specified as a commit log message is piped through the command; typical uses include
sending mail, filing an article in a newsgroup, or appending to a central file.

cvsignore, .cvsignore
The default list of files (or sh(1) file name patterns) to ignore during `cvs update'.
At startup time, cvs loads the compiled in default list of file name patterns (see
cvs(1)). Then the per-repository list included in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvsignore is load‐
ed, if it exists. Then the per-user list is loaded from `$HOME/.cvsignore'. Finally,
as cvs traverses through your directories, it will load any per-directory `.cvsignore'
files whenever it finds one. These per-directory files are only valid for exactly the
directory that contains them, not for any sub-directories.

history
Create this file in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT to enable history logging (see the description of
`cvs history').