This manual describes PCL-CVS, the GNU Emacs front-end to CVS. It is nowhere near complete, so you are advised to use M-x customize-group RET pcl-cvs RET and to look at the documentation strings of the various commands and major modes for further information.
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PCL-CVS is a front-end to CVS versions 1.9 and later.
It concisely shows the present status of a checked out module in an
Emacs buffer and provides single-key access to the most frequently used CVS
commands. Note that the vc-dir
command (see VC Directory
Mode in The GNU Emacs Manual) provides similar
functionality, but for several version control systems, including CVS.
PCL-CVS was originally written many years ago by Per Cederqvist who proudly maintained it until January 1996, at which point he released the beta version 2.0b2 and passed on the maintainership to Greg A Woods. Development stayed mostly dormant for a few years during which version 2.0 never seemed to be able to leave the “beta” stage while a separate XEmacs version was slowly splitting away. In late 1998, Stefan Monnier picked up development again, adding some major new functionality and taking over the maintenance.
Contributions to the package are welcome. I have limited time to work on this project, but I will gladly add any code that you contribute to me to this package (see Bugs (known and unknown)).
The following persons have made contributions to PCL-CVS.
cvs-status-mode
.
Apart from these, a lot of people have sent us suggestions, ideas, requests, bug reports and encouragement. Thanks a lot! Without you there would be no new releases of PCL-CVS.
This document assumes that you know what CVS is, and that you at least know the fundamental concepts of CVS. If that is not the case, you should read the CVS documentation. Type info -f cvs or man cvs.
PCL-CVS is only useful once you have checked out a module. So before you invoke it, you must have a copy of a module somewhere in the file system.
You can invoke PCL-CVS by typing M-x cvs-examine RET. You can also invoke it via the menu bar, under ‘Tools’. Or, if you prefer, you can also invoke PCL-CVS by simply visiting the CVS administrative subdirectory of your module, with a prefix argument. For example, to invoke PCL-CVS in a separate frame, type C-u C-x 5 f ~/my/project/CVS RET.
The function cvs-examine
will ask for a directory. The command
‘cvs -n update’ will be run in that directory. (It should contain
files that have been checked out from a CVS archive.) The output from
cvs
will be parsed and presented in a table in a buffer called
*cvs*. It might look something like this:
Repository : /usr/CVSroot Module : test Working dir: /users/ceder/FOO/test In directory .: Need-Update bar Need-Update file.txt Modified namechange Need-Update newer In directory sub: Modified ChangeLog --------------------- End --------------------- -- last cmd: cvs -f -z6 -n update -d -P --
In this example, your repository is in /usr/CVSroot and CVS has been run in the directory /users/ceder/FOO/test. The three files (bar, file.txt and newer) that are marked with ‘Need-Update’ have been changed by someone else in the CVS repository. Two files (namechange and sub/ChangeLog) have been modified locally, and need to be checked in.
You can move the cursor up and down in the buffer with C-n and C-p or n and p. If you press c on one of the ‘Modified’ files, that file will be checked in to the CVS repository. See Committing changes. You can also press O to update any of the files that are marked ‘Need-Update’. You can also run M-x cvs-update RET (bound to M-u in the *cvs* buffer) to update all the files.
You can then press = to easily get a ‘diff’ between your modified file and the base version that you started from, or you can press l to get the output from ‘cvs log’. Many more such commands are available simply by pressing a key (see Getting info about files).
The display contains several columns, some of which are optional. These columns are, from left to right:
The ‘file status’ field can have the following values:
The file is modified in your working directory, and there was no modification to the same file in the repository. This status can have the following substatus:
The file was modified in your working directory, and there were modifications in the repository as well, but they were merged successfully, without conflict, in your working directory.
A conflict was detected while trying to merge your changes to file
with changes from the repository. file (the copy in your
working directory) is now the output of the rcsmerge
command on
the two versions; an unmodified copy of your file is also in your
working directory, with the name .#file.version,
where version is the RCS revision that your modified file started
from. See Viewing differences, for more details.
A conflict can also come from a disagreement on the existence of the file rather than on its content. This case is indicated by the following possible substatus:
The file is locally removed but a new revision has been committed to the repository by someone else.
The file is locally added and has also been added to the repository by someone else.
The file is locally modified but someone else has removed it from the repository.
The file has been added by you, but it still needs to be checked in to the repository.
The file has been removed by you, but it still needs to be checked in to the repository. You can resurrect it by typing a (see Adding and removing files).
A file that was detected in your directory, but that neither appears in the repository, nor is present on the list of files that CVS should ignore.
The file is up to date with respect to the version in the repository. This status can have a substatus of:
You have just added the file to the repository.
The file was brought up to date with respect to the repository. This is done for any file that exists in the repository but not in your source, and for files that you haven’t changed but are not the most recent versions available in the repository.
The file was brought up to date with respect to the remote repository by way of fetching and applying a patch to the file in your source. This is equivalent to ‘updated’ except that CVS decided to use a hopefully more efficient method.
You just committed the file.
Either a newer version than the one in your source is available in the repository and you have not modified your checked out version, or the file exists in the repository but not in your source. Use ‘cvs-mode-update’ bound to O to update the file.
You have modified the checked out version of the file, and a newer version is available in the repository. A merge will take place when you run a ‘cvs-update’.
The file has been unexpectedly removed from your working directory although it has not been ‘cvs remove’d.
Many of the commands work on the current set of selected files which can be either the set of marked files (if any file is marked and marks are not ignored) or whichever file or directory the cursor is on.
If a directory is selected but the command cannot be applied to a directory, then it will be applied to the set of files under this directory which are in the *cvs* buffer.
Furthermore, each command only operates on a subset of the selected
files, depending on whether or not the command is applicable to
each file (based on the file’s status). For example,
cvs-mode-commit
is not applicable to a file whose status is
‘Need-Update’. If it should happen that PCL-CVS guesses the
applicability wrong, you can override it with the special prefix
cvs-mode-force-command
normally bound to M-f (and file a
bug report). The applicability rule can be slightly changed with
cvs-allow-dir-commit
and cvs-force-dir-tag
.
By default, marks are always in effect (you may change this, however, by
setting the variable cvs-default-ignore-marks
) except for the
commands that ‘tag’ or ‘diff’ a file (which can be changed
with the variable cvs-invert-ignore-marks
).
In addition, you may use the special prefix cvs-mode-toggle-marks
normally bound to T to toggle the use of marks for the following
command.
This scheme might seem a little complicated, but once one gets used to it, it is quite powerful.
For commands to mark and unmark files, see Marking files.
The nodes in this menu contains explanations about all the commands that you can use in PCL-CVS. They are grouped together by type.
Most commands in PCL-CVS require that you have a *cvs* buffer. The commands that you use to get one are listed below. For each, a ‘cvs’ process will be run, the output will be parsed by PCL-CVS, and the result will be printed in the *cvs* buffer (see Buffer contents, for a description of the buffer’s contents).
Run a ‘cvs update’ command. You will be asked for the directory in which the ‘cvs update’ will be run.
Run a ‘cvs -n update’ command. This is identical to the previous command, except that it will only check what needs to be done but will not change anything. You will be asked for the directory in which the ‘cvs -n update’ will be run.
Run a ‘cvs status’ command. You will be asked for the directory in which the ‘cvs status’ will be run.
Run a ‘cvs checkout’ command. You will be asked for the directory in which the ‘cvs update’ will be run and the module to be checked out.
Populate the *cvs* buffer by just looking at the CVS/Entries
files. This is very much like cvs-examine
except that it does
not access the CVS repository, which is a major advantage when the
repository is far away. But of course, it will not be able to detect
when a file needs to be updated or merged.
The first four of
those commands are also reachable from the menu bar
under ‘Tools->PCL-CVS’. Finally, an alternative way is to visit
the CVS administrative subdirectory in your work area with a simple
prefix argument. For example C-u C-x C-f ~/my/work/CVS RET. This
by default runs cvs-quickdir
but the specific behavior can be
changed with cvs-dired-action
and cvs-dired-use-hook
.
By default, the commands above will descend recursively into subdirectories. You can avoid that behavior by including ‘-l’ in the flags for the command. These flags can be set by giving a prefix argument to the command (e.g., by typing C-u M-x cvs-update RET -l RET).
This section describes the convention used by nearly all PCL-CVS commands for setting optional flags sent to CVS. A single C-u prefix argument is used to cause the command to prompt for flags to be used for the current invocation of the command only. Two C-u prefix arguments are used to prompt for flags which will be set permanently, for the current invocation and all that follow, until the flags are changed, or unless temporary flags are set which override them.
Perhaps an example or two is in order. Say you are about to add a binary file to the repository, and want to specify the flags ‘-kb’ to ‘cvs add’. You can type C-u a -kb RET, and the file will be added. Subsequent ‘cvs add’ commands will use the previously prevailing flags.
As a second example, say you are about to perform a diff and want to see
the result in unified diff format, i.e., you’d like to pass the flag
‘-u’ to both ‘cvs diff’ and ‘diff’. You’d also like all
subsequent diffs to use this flag. You can type C-u C-u = -u RET
and the diff will be performed, and the default flags will be set to
("-u")
. You can of course override this flag for a single diff
by using a single C-u prefix argument.
In addition to this, some commands can take special prefix arguments. These work as follows: When called with a C-u prefix, the user is prompted for a new value of the special prefix and the special prefix is activated for the next command. When called without the C-u prefix, the special prefix is re-activated (with the same value as last time) for the next command. Calling the prefix command again when it’s already activated deactivates it. Calling it with the C-u C-u prefix activates it for all subsequent commands until you deactivate it explicitly. The special prefixes are:
Toggles whether or not marks will be active in the next command.
Provide the next command with a branch (can be any version specifier) to work on.
Secondary branch argument. Only meaningful if b is also used.
It can be used to provide a second branch argument to
cvs-mode-diff
or to cvs-mode-update
.
Forces the next command to apply to every selected file rather than only to the ones PCL-CVS thinks are relevant.
The following commands can be used from within the *cvs* buffer to update the display:
Runs the command ‘cvs-update’.
Runs the command ‘cvs-examine’.
Runs the command ‘cvs-status’.
In addition to the above commands which operate on the whole module, you can run the equivalent CVS command on just a subset of the files/directories with these keys:
Runs cvs-mode-update
on the selected files. When run on the
top-level directory, this is equivalent to M-u.
Runs cvs-mode-examine
on the selected files. When run on the
top-level directory, this is equivalent to M-e.
Runs cvs-mode-status
on the selected files. When run on the
top-level directory, this is equivalent to M-s, except that
CVS output will be shown in a *cvs-info* buffer that will be
put in ‘cvs-status-mode’.
You can use most normal Emacs commands to move forward and backward in the buffer. Some keys are rebound to functions that take advantage of the fact that the buffer is a PCL-CVS buffer:
These keys move the cursor one file forward, towards the end of the
buffer (cvs-mode-next-line
).
This key moves one file backward, towards the beginning of the buffer
(cvs-mode-previous-line
).
PCL-CVS works on a set of selected files (see Selected files). You can mark and unmark files with these commands:
This marks the file that the cursor is positioned on. If the cursor is
positioned on a directory all files in that directory are marked
(cvs-mode-mark
).
Unmark the file that the cursor is positioned on. If the cursor is on a
directory, all files in that directory are unmarked
(cvs-mode-unmark
).
Mark all files in the buffer (cvs-mode-mark-all-files
).
Unmark all files (cvs-mode-unmark-all-files
).
Unmark the file on the previous line, and move point to that line
(cvs-mode-unmark-up
).
Mark all files matching a regular expression
(cvs-mode-mark-matching-files
).
Mark all files in a particular state, such as “Modified” or
“Removed” (cvs-mode-mark-on-state
).
Toggle use of marks for the next command (cvs-mode-toggle-marks
).
Committing changes basically works as follows:
There’s no hidden state, so you can abort the process or pick it up again at any time.
The set of files actually committed is really decided only during the
very last step, which is a mixed blessing. It allows you to go back and
change your mind about which files to commit, but it also means that you
might inadvertently change the set of selected files. To reduce the
risk of error, C-c C-c will ask for confirmation if the set of
selected files has changed between the first step and the last. You can
change this last detail with log-edit-confirm
.
As for the difference between c (i.e., cvs-mode-commit
) and
C (i.e., cvs-mode-commit-setup
) is that the first gets you
straight to *cvs-commit* without erasing it or changing anything
to its content, while the second first erases *cvs-commit*
and tries to initialize it with a sane default (it does that by either
using a template provided by the CVS administrator or by extracting a
relevant log message from a ChangeLog file).
If you are editing the files in your Emacs, an automatic ‘revert-buffer’ will be performed. (If the file contains ‘$Id$’ keywords, ‘cvs commit’ will write a new file with the new values substituted. The auto-revert makes sure that you get them into your buffer.) The revert will not occur if you have modified your buffer, or if ‘cvs-auto-revert’ is set to ‘nil’.
There are currently three commands that can be used to find a file (that is, load it into a buffer and start editing it there). These commands work on the line that the cursor is situated at. They always ignore any marked files.
Find the file that the cursor points to (cvs-mode-find-file
). If
the cursor points to a directory, run dired
on that directory;
see Emacs Manual.
Like f, but use another window
(cvs-mode-find-file-other-window
).
Invoke ‘add-change-log-entry-other-window’ to edit a
ChangeLog file. The ChangeLog file will be found in the
directory of the file the cursor points to, or in a parent of that
directory (cvs-mode-add-change-log-entry-other-window
).
Call the command cvs-mode-log
which runs ‘cvs log’ on all
selected files, and show the result in a temporary buffer
*cvs-info* (see Browsing a Log of Changes).
Call the command cvs-mode-status
which runs ‘cvs status’ on
all selected files, and show the result in a temporary buffer
*cvs-info*.
The following commands are available to make it easy to add files to and remove them from the CVS repository.
Add all selected files. This command can be used on ‘Unknown’ files (see Buffer contents). The status of the file will change to ‘Added’, and you will have to use c (‘cvs-mode-commit’ see Committing changes), to really add the file to the repository.
This command can also be used on ‘Removed’ files (before you commit them) to resurrect them.
The command that is run is cvs-mode-add
.
This command removes the selected files (after prompting for confirmation). The files are deleted from your directory and (unless the status was ‘Unknown’; see Buffer contents) they will also be ‘cvs remove’d. If the files’ status was ‘Unknown’ they will disappear from the buffer. Otherwise their status will change to ‘Removed’, and you must use c (‘cvs-mode-commit’, see Committing changes) to commit the removal.
The command that is run is cvs-mode-remove-file
.
If you have modified a file, and for some reason decide that you don’t
want to keep the changes, you can undo them with this command. It works
by removing your working copy of the file and then getting the latest
version from the repository (cvs-mode-undo-local-changes
).
This command allows you to remove all entries that you have processed. More specifically, the lines for ‘Up-to-date’ files (see Buffer contents) are removed from the buffer. If a directory becomes empty the heading for that directory is also removed. This makes it easier to get an overview of what needs to be done.
x invokes cvs-mode-remove-handled
. If
‘cvs-auto-remove-handled’ is set to non-nil
, this will
automatically be performed after every commit.
This command can be used for lines that ‘cvs-mode-remove-handled’ would
not delete, but that you want to delete (cvs-mode-acknowledge
).
Arrange so that CVS will ignore the selected files. The file names are added to the .cvsignore file in the corresponding directory. If the .cvsignore file doesn’t exist, it will be created.
The .cvsignore file should normally be added to the repository, but you could ignore it as well, if you like it better that way.
This runs cvs-mode-ignore
.
Display a ‘cvs diff’ between the selected files and the version
that they are based on (cvs-mode-diff
).
If CVS finds a conflict while merging two versions of a file (during a ‘cvs update’, see Updating the *cvs* buffer) it will save the original file in a file called .#file.version where file is the name of the file, and version is the revision number that file was based on.
With the d b command you can run a ‘diff’ on the files .#file.version and file.
Display a ‘cvs diff’ between the selected files and the head
revision (the most recent version on the current
branch) in the repository (cvs-mode-diff-head
).
Display a ‘cvs diff’ between the base revision of the selected
files and the head revision in the repository. This displays the
changes anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
a checkout, update or commit operation
(cvs-mode-diff-repository
).
Display a ‘cvs diff’ between the selected files and the head
revision of the vendor branch in the repository
(cvs-mode-diff-vendor
).
Display a ‘cvs diff’ between the selected files and yesterday’s
head revision in the repository
(cvs-mode-diff-yesterday
).
By default, ‘diff’ commands ignore the marks. This can be changed
with cvs-invert-ignore-marks
.
This uses ediff
(or emerge
, depending on
‘cvs-idiff-imerge-handlers’) to allow you to view diffs.
If a prefix argument is given, PCL-CVS will prompt for a revision against
which the diff should be made, else the default will be to use the BASE
revision.
This command use ediff
(or emerge
, see above) to allow you
to do an interactive 3-way merge.
Please note: when the file status is ‘Conflict’, CVS has already performed a merge. The resulting file is not used in any way if you use this command. If you use the q command inside ‘ediff’ (to successfully terminate a merge) the file that CVS created will be overwritten.
Update all selected files with status ‘Need-update’ by running
‘cvs update’ on them (cvs-mode-update
).
Tag all selected files by running ‘cvs tag’ on
them (cvs-mode-tag
). It’s usually preferable to tag a directory
at a time. Rather than selecting all files (which too often doesn’t
select all files but only the few that are displayed), clear the
selection with M-DEL (cvs-mode-unmark-all-files
), position
the cursor on the directory you want to tag and hit t.
By default, ‘tag’ commands ignore the marks. This can be changed
with cvs-invert-ignore-marks
. Also, by default ‘tag’ can
only be applied to directories, see cvs-force-dir-tag
if you want
to change this behavior.
Byte compile all selected files that end in .el.
This command deletes the lock files that the *cvs* buffer informs you about. You should normally never have to use this command, since CVS tries very carefully to always remove the lock files itself.
You can only use this command when a message in the *cvs* buffer tells
you so. You should wait a while before using this command in case
someone else is running a cvs
command.
Also note that this only works if the repository is local.
Show a summary of common command key bindings in the echo
area (cvs-help
).
Bury the PCL-CVS buffer (cvs-bury-buffer
).
Quit PCL-CVS, killing the *cvs* buffer.
Buffers for entering/editing log messages for changes which are about to be committed are put into Log Edit mode.
Sometimes the log buffer contains default text when you enter it, typically the last log message entered. If it does, mark and point are set around the entire contents of the buffer so that it is easy to kill the contents of the buffer with C-w.
If you work by writing entries in the ChangeLog (see Change Log in The GNU Emacs Manual) and then commit the change under revision control, you can generate the Log Edit text from the ChangeLog using C-c C-a (log-edit-insert-changelog). This looks for entries for the file(s) concerned in the top entry in the ChangeLog and uses those paragraphs as the log text. This text is only inserted if the top entry was made under your user name on the current date. See Change Logs and VC in The GNU Emacs Manual, for the opposite way of working—generating ChangeLog entries from the revision control log.
In the Log Edit buffer, C-c C-f (M-x log-edit-show-files) shows the list of files to be committed in case you need to check that.
When you have finished editing the log message, type C-c C-c to exit the buffer and commit the change.
Log View mode provides a few useful commands for navigating revision
control log output. It is used for the output buffers of both
cvs-mode-log
and vc-print-log
.
In this mode, n goes to the next message and p goes to the previous message and N and P go to the next and previous files, respectively, in multi-file output. With a numeric prefix argument, these commands move that many messages of files.
If you have an idea about any customization that would be handy but isn’t present in this list, please tell us! For info on how to reach us, see Bugs (known and unknown).
If this variable is set to any non-nil
value,
‘cvs-mode-remove-handled’ will be called every time you check in
files, after the check-in is ready. See Removing handled entries.
If this variable is set to any non-nil
value, directories that do
not contain any files to be checked in will not be listed in the
*cvs* buffer.
If this variable is set to any non-‘nil’ value any buffers you have that visit a file that is committed will be automatically reverted. This variable defaults to ‘t’. See Committing changes.
The ‘-u’ flag in the modules file can be used to run a command
whenever a ‘cvs update’ is performed (see cvs(5)
). This regexp
is used to search for the last line in that output. It is normally set
to ‘$’. That setting is only correct if the command outputs
nothing. Note that PCL-CVS will get very confused if the command
outputs anything to stderr
.
This variable can be set to override ‘CVSROOT’. It should be a
string. If it is set, then every time a cvs
command is run, it
will be called as ‘cvs -d cvs-cvsroot…’. This can be
useful if your site has several repositories.
When you enter a log message by typing into the *cvs-commit-message* buffer, PCL-CVS normally automatically inserts a trailing newline, unless there already is one. This behavior can be controlled via ‘cvs-commit-buffer-require-final-newline’. If it is ‘t’ (the default behavior), a newline will always be appended. If it is ‘nil’, newlines will never be appended. Any other value causes PCL-CVS to ask the user whenever there is no trailing newline in the commit message buffer.
If this variable is non-nil
, include full ChangeLog
paragraphs in the CVS log created by ‘cvs-mode-changelog-commit’.
This may be set in the local variables section of a ChangeLog
file, to indicate the policy for that ChangeLog.
A ChangeLog paragraph is a bunch of log text containing no blank lines; a paragraph usually describes a set of changes with a single purpose, but perhaps spanning several functions in several files. Changes in different paragraphs are unrelated.
You could argue that the CVS log entry for a file should contain the
full ChangeLog paragraph mentioning the change to the file, even though
it may mention other files, because that gives you the full context you
need to understand the change. This is the behavior you get when this
variable is set to t
, the default.
On the other hand, you could argue that the CVS log entry for a change
should contain only the text for the changes which occurred in that
file, because the CVS log is per-file. This is the behavior you get
when this variable is set to nil
.
If this variable is set to any non-‘nil’ value, the .cvsignore file will always be sorted whenever you use ‘cvs-mode-ignore’ to add a file to it. This option is on by default.
PCL-CVS adds a few extra features, including menus, mouse bindings, and fontification of the *cvs* buffer. The faces defined for fontification are listed below:
used to highlight directory changes.
Used to highlight file names.
Used to highlight the status of files which are ‘Unknown’.
Used to highlight the status of files which are handled and need no further action.
Used to highlight the status of files which still need action.
Used to highlight the marked file indicator (‘*’).
Used to highlight CVS messages.
If you find a bug or misfeature, don’t hesitate to tell us! Use M-x report-emacs-bug to send us a report. You can follow the same process for feature requests. We prefer discussing one thing at a time. If you find several unrelated bugs, please report them separately.
If you have problems using PCL-CVS or other questions, send them to the help-gnu-emacs mailing list. This is a good place to get help, as is the info-cvs list.
If you have ideas for improvements, or if you have written some extensions to this package, we would like to hear from you. We hope that you find this package useful!
Below is a partial list of currently known problems with PCL-CVS.
Unexpected output from CVS may confuse PCL-CVS. It will create warning messages in the *cvs* buffer alerting you to any parse errors. If you get these messages, please send a bug report to the email addresses listed above. Include the contents of the *cvs* buffer, the output of the CVS process (which should be found in the *cvs-tmp* buffer), and the versions of Emacs, PCL-CVS and CVS you are using.
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To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright (C) year your name. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with…Texts.” line with this:
with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with the Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts being list.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.
This is an index of all the functions and variables documented in this manual.
This is an index of concepts discussed in this manual.
This index includes an entry for each PCL-CVS key sequence documented in this manual.