The symbolic tags are meant to permanently record which revisions of which files were used in creating a software distribution. The checkout, export, and update commands allow you to extract an exact copy of a tagged release at any time in the future, regardless of whether files have been changed, added, or removed since the release was tagged.

You can use the standard -r and _D options to tag only those files that already contain a certain tag. This method would be used to rename a tag: tag only the files identified by the old tag, then delete the old tag, leaving the new tag on exactly the same files as the old tag.

Specifying the _f flag in addition to the -r or _D flags will tag those files named on the command line even if they do not contain the old tag or did not exist on the specified date.

By default (without a -r or _D flag), the versions to be tagged are supplied implicitly by the cvs records of your working files' history rather than applied explicitly.

If you use cvs tag _d symbolic tag..., the symbolic tag you specify is deleted instead of being added.

cvs tag will not move a tag that already exists. With the _F option, however, cvs tag will relocate any instance of symbolic tag that already exists on that file to the new repository versions. Without the _F option, attempting to use cvs tag to apply a tag that already exists on that file will produce an error message.

The -b option makes the tag a branch tag, allowing concurrent, isolated development. This is most useful for creating a patch to a previously released software distribution.

Normally, tag executes recursively through subdirectories; you can prevent this by using the standard _l option, or specify the recursion explicitly by using _R.

update [_Adf lPpQqR][_d][_r tag|_D date]files...

After you've run checkout to create your private copy of source from the common repository, other developers will continue changing the central source. From time to time, when it is convenient in your development process, you can use the update command from within your working directory to reconcile your work with any revisions applied to the source repository since your last checkout or update.

update keeps you informed of its progress by printing a line for each file, prefaced with one of the characters U, A, R, M, C, or ? to indicate the status of the file:

Use the _A option to reset any sticky tags, dates, or _k options. (If you get a working copy of a file by using one of the -r, _D, or _k options, cvs remembers the corresponding tag, date, or kflag and continues using it on future updates; use the _A option to make cvs forget these specifications, and retrieve the head version of the file).

The _jbranch option merges the changes made between the resulting revision and the revision that it is based on. (For example, if the tag refers to a branch, cvs will merge all changes made in that branch into your working file.)

With two -j options, cvs will merge in the changes between the two respective revisions. This can be used to "remove" a certain delta from your working file. For example, if the file foo.c is based on revision 1.6 and I want to remove the changes made between 1.3 and 1.5, I might do this:

example% cvs update -j1.5 -j1.3 foo.c # note the order...

In addition, each -j option can contain on optional date specification which, when used with branches, can limit the chosen revision to one within a specific date. An optional date is specified by adding a colon (:) to the tag:

-jSymbolic Tag:Date Specifier

Use the _d option to create any directories that exist in the repository if they're missing from the working directory. (Normally, update acts only on directories and files that were already enrolled in your working directory.) This is useful for updating directories that were created in the repository since the initial checkout; but it has an unfortunate side effect. If you deliberately avoided certain directories in the repository when you created your working directory (either through use of a module name or by listing explicitly the files and directories you wanted on the command line), then updating with _d will create those directories, which may not be what you want.

Use _I name to ignore files whose names match name (in your working directory) during the update. You can specify _I more than once on the command line to specify several files to ignore. By default, update ignores files whose names match any of the following:

RCSLOG RCS SCCS

CVS* cvslog.*

tags TAGS

.make.state .nse_depinfo

~ #* .#* ,

.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del_*

.a *.o *.so *.Z *.elc *.ln core

Use _I! to avoid ignoring any files at all.

The standard cvs command options _f, _k, _l, _P, _p, and _r are also available with update.

FILES

For more detailed information on cvs supporting files, see cvs(5).

Files in home directories: