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Source Code Management

Use Revision Control System (RCS) to create master capies of all source files. Every time a modification is made to a source file then do a check in, check out. All source code must be under version control. Use minor version numbers to distinguish between different versions of the same file and major version numbers to distinguish between different major versions of the project.

For documentation of RCS do man rcs. Note for RCS to work there must be only ONE master version of the RCS source repository.

Example for the basic commands of rcs are :

1.
starting up - before putting any file under revision control create a directory called RCS where all version files will be stored (mkdir RCS).
2.
checking in a file - checkin and update the current version (ci -u file).
3.
making an intermediate checking in a file - checkin and check the current version out with locking (ci -l file).
4.
checking out a specific version - where the required version is m.n (co -rm.n file).
5.
comparing the current version with the last checked in version - prints the differences between the checked out and the latest checked in version (rcsdiff file).
Two golden rules for knowing when to checkin are (1) checkin a file when a significant modification has been made, and (2) checkin when you have typed in so much that you don't want to lose it. Note RCS is not available for the sun's at present. If needed it can be easily got from the public domain and installed on the sun's.
next up previous
Next: Distributing Binaries Up: Hartebeesthoek 26m New Computer Previous: Debugging
Mike Gaylard
1999-06-14