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From: runyan@hpirs.HP.COM (Mark Runyan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Bugs in RCS ??
Message-ID: <4640018@hpirs.HP.COM>
Date: 14 Oct 89 03:57:44 GMT
References: <1730@zen.co.uk>
Organization: HP GSY/USO/UKL Cupertino, CA, USA
Lines: 58

>/ vic@zen.co.uk (Victor Gavin) /  8:16 am  Oct 12, 1989 /
>[`uname -a` == "HP-UX zen A.B3.10 D 9000/840 5067"]

Thanks for the ID...

>1) If you have a central RCS directory somewhere, which has many links
>to it, and you check a file out as locked in one of the directories
>with a link, you can also check it out as locked in a totally
>different directory, as long as there isn't a copy of the file in the
>second directory.
>
>ie The locking doesn't work, as it is dependent upon having a
>writeable copy of the file in the current directory.

I'm confused about this.  If you check a revision out as "locked",
the lock is stored in the RCS file (The ",v" file).  The writeableness
of the working file isn't what sets the lock.  It is also my impression
that the semaphore file is put where the RCS file is, so I don't think
you are talking about that.  Could you be referring to the fact that
RCS does not work well with links (hard or soft)?  It seems that since
RCS tends to completely replace the RCS file, any links you try to
establish for the ",v" file are broken.  Perhaps a work around would
be to use the RCS directory/file feature.

>2) If you have a file checked out as locked, but which hasn't been
>modified, when you check it in it will ask
>
>	File blip is unchanged with respect to revision 1.1
>	checkin anyway? [ny](n): 
>
>and if you answer `n', the source file will get *deleted*. Worse still
>the lock will still be set so you cannot check out anymore locked
>versions.

But you can check out the version you already have locked by using
the "-r" option.  I'm not sure why the file is deleted or whether
that is the right thing to do or not, but if it is exactly the
same as the revision you already have locked, then you can recover
by checking out the version you have locked by using the "-r" option.
If you wish to clear a lock, you can use the "rcs -u" command to
remove a lock that you currently have.

>As an aside, maybe someone from HP would like to comment on why some
>of the products they ship are much older versions of those available
>from other manufacturers (in this case, RCS from HP is dated May 1983,
>and there are certainly much newer versions available).

Well, just as an attempt to spread the rumor further, it is because
we haven't obtained a copy of the new stuff that we can resell as
part of product...   I think the problem is that later versions of
RCS are under GNU's copyleft and HP lawyers are still completely
sure about what that means if we want to include RCS with HP-UX.

>And as a wish, can't we have some more useful stuff available on the
>contrib tape.

Hope that someday we can meet your requests.  The more people that
ask for a contrib tape, the better the chances of one being built.