ci
CI(1) General Commands Manual CI(1)
NAME
ci - check in RCS revisions
SYNOPSIS
ci [options] file ...
DESCRIPTION
ci stores new revisions into RCS files. Each file name matching an RCS
suffix is taken to be an RCS file. All others are assumed to be work-
ing files containing new revisions. ci deposits the contents of each
working file into the corresponding RCS file. If only a working file
is given, ci tries to find the corresponding RCS file in an RCS subdi-
rectory and then in the working file's directory. For more details,
see FILE NAMING below.
For ci to work, the caller's login must be on the access list, except
if the access list is empty or the caller is the superuser or the owner
of the file. To append a new revision to an existing branch, the tip
revision on that branch must be locked by the caller. Otherwise, only
a new branch can be created. This restriction is not enforced for the
owner of the file if non-strict locking is used (see rcs(1)). A lock
held by someone else can be broken with the rcs command.
Unless the -f option is given, ci checks whether the revision to be de-
posited differs from the preceding one. If not, instead of creating a
new revision ci reverts to the preceding one. To revert, ordinary ci
removes the working file and any lock; ci -l keeps and ci -u removes
any lock, and then they both generate a new working file much as if
co -l or co -u had been applied to the preceding revision. When re-
verting, any -n and -s options apply to the preceding revision.
For each revision deposited, ci prompts for a log message. The log
message should summarize the change and must be terminated by end-of-
file or by a line containing . by itself. If several files are checked
in ci asks whether to reuse the previous log message. If the standard
input is not a terminal, ci suppresses the prompt and uses the same log
message for all files. See also -m.
If the RCS file does not exist, ci creates it and deposits the contents
of the working file as the initial revision (default number: 1.1). The
access list is initialized to empty. Instead of the log message, ci
requests descriptive text (see -t below).
The number rev of the deposited revision can be given by any of the op-
tions -f, -i, -I, -j, -k, -l, -M, -q, -r, or -u. rev can be symbolic,
numeric, or mixed. Symbolic names in rev must already be defined; see
the -n and -N options for assigning names during checkin. If rev is $,
ci determines the revision number from keyword values in the working
file.
If rev begins with a period, then the default branch (normally the
trunk) is prepended to it. If rev is a branch number followed by a pe-
riod, then the latest revision on that branch is used.
If rev is a revision number, it must be higher than the latest one on
the branch to which rev belongs, or must start a new branch.
If rev is a branch rather than a revision number, the new revision is
appended to that branch. The level number is obtained by incrementing
the tip revision number of that branch. If rev indicates a non-exist-
ing branch, that branch is created with the initial revision numbered
rev.1.
If rev is omitted, ci tries to derive the new revision number from the
caller's last lock. If the caller has locked the tip revision of a
branch, the new revision is appended to that branch. The new revision
number is obtained by incrementing the tip revision number. If the
caller locked a non-tip revision, a new branch is started at that revi-
sion by incrementing the highest branch number at that revision. The
default initial branch and level numbers are 1.
If rev is omitted and the caller has no lock, but owns the file and
locking is not set to strict, then the revision is appended to the de-
fault branch (normally the trunk; see the -b option of rcs(1)).
Exception: On the trunk, revisions can be appended to the end, but not
inserted.
OPTIONS
-rrev Check in revision rev.
-r The bare -r option (without any revision) has an unusual meaning
in ci. With other RCS commands, a bare -r option specifies the
most recent revision on the default branch, but with ci, a bare
-r option reestablishes the default behavior of releasing a lock
and removing the working file, and is used to override any de-
fault -l or -u options established by shell aliases or scripts.
-l[rev]
works like -r, except it performs an additional co -l for the
deposited revision. Thus, the deposited revision is immediately
checked out again and locked. This is useful for saving a revi-
sion although one wants to continue editing it after the
checkin.
-u[rev]
works like -l, except that the deposited revision is not locked.
This lets one read the working file immediately after checkin.
The -l, bare -r, and -u options are mutually exclusive and
silently override each other. For example, ci -u -r is equiva-
lent to ci -r because bare -r overrides -u.
-f[rev]
forces a deposit; the new revision is deposited even it is not
different from the preceding one.
-k[rev]
searches the working file for keyword values to determine its
revision number, creation date, state, and author (see co(1)),
and assigns these values to the deposited revision, rather than
computing them locally. It also generates a default login mes-
sage noting the login of the caller and the actual checkin date.
This option is useful for software distribution. A revision
that is sent to several sites should be checked in with the -k
option at these sites to preserve the original number, date, au-
thor, and state. The extracted keyword values and the default
log message can be overridden with the options -d, -m, -s, -w,
and any option that carries a revision number.
-q[rev]
quiet mode; diagnostic output is not printed. A revision that
is not different from the preceding one is not deposited, unless
-f is given.
-i[rev]
initial checkin; report an error if the RCS file already exists.
This avoids race conditions in certain applications.
-j[rev]
just checkin and do not initialize; report an error if the RCS
file does not already exist.
-I[rev]
interactive mode; the user is prompted and questioned even if
the standard input is not a terminal.
-d[date]
uses date for the checkin date and time. The date is specified
in free format as explained in co(1). This is useful for lying
about the checkin date, and for -k if no date is available. If
date is empty, the working file's time of last modification is
used.
-M[rev]
Set the modification time on any new working file to be the date
of the retrieved revision. For example, ci -d -M -u f does not
alter f's modification time, even if f's contents change due to
keyword substitution. Use this option with care; it can confuse
make(1).
-m[msg]
uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked
in. If msg is omitted, it defaults to "*** empty log message
***". By convention, log messages that start with # are com-
ments and are ignored by programs like GNU Emacs's vc package.
Also, log messages that start with {clumpname} (followed by
white space) are meant to be clumped together if possible, even
if they are associated with different files; the {clumpname} la-
bel is used only for clumping, and is not considered to be part
of the log message itself.
-nname assigns the symbolic name name to the number of the checked-in
revision. ci prints an error message if name is already as-
signed to another number.
-Nname same as -n, except that it overrides a previous assignment of
name.
-sstate
sets the state of the checked-in revision to the identifier
state. The default state is Exp.
-tfile writes descriptive text from the contents of the named file into
the RCS file, deleting the existing text. The file cannot begin
with -.
-t-string
Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, delet-
ing the existing text.
The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an ini-
tial checkin; it is silently ignored otherwise.
During the initial checkin, if -t is not given, ci obtains the
text from standard input, terminated by end-of-file or by a line
containing . by itself. The user is prompted for the text if
interaction is possible; see -I.
For backward compatibility with older versions of RCS, a bare -t
option is ignored.
-T Set the RCS file's modification time to the new revision's time
if the former precedes the latter and there is a new revision;
preserve the RCS file's modification time otherwise. If you
have locked a revision, ci usually updates the RCS file's modi-
fication time to the current time, because the lock is stored in
the RCS file and removing the lock requires changing the RCS
file. This can create an RCS file newer than the working file
in one of two ways: first, ci -M can create a working file with
a date before the current time; second, when reverting to the
previous revision the RCS file can change while the working file
remains unchanged. These two cases can cause excessive recompi-
lation caused by a make(1) dependency of the working file on the
RCS file. The -T option inhibits this recompilation by lying
about the RCS file's date. Use this option with care; it can
suppress recompilation even when a checkin of one working file
should affect another working file associated with the same RCS
file. For example, suppose the RCS file's time is 01:00, the
(changed) working file's time is 02:00, some other copy of the
working file has a time of 03:00, and the current time is 04:00.
Then ci -d -T sets the RCS file's time to 02:00 instead of the
usual 04:00; this causes make(1) to think (incorrectly) that the
other copy is newer than the RCS file.
-wlogin
uses login for the author field of the deposited revision. Use-
ful for lying about the author, and for -k if no author is
available.
-V Print RCS's version number.
-Vn Emulate RCS version n. See co(1) for details.
-xsuffixes
specifies the suffixes for RCS files. A nonempty suffix matches
any file name ending in the suffix. An empty suffix matches any
file name of the form RCS/frag or frag1/RCS/frag2. The -x op-
tion can specify a list of suffixes separated by /. For exam-
ple, -x,v/ specifies two suffixes: ,v and the empty suffix. If
two or more suffixes are specified, they are tried in order when
looking for an RCS file; the first one that works is used for
that file. If no RCS file is found but an RCS file can be cre-
ated, the suffixes are tried in order to determine the new RCS
file's name. The default for suffixes is installation-depen-
dent; normally it is ,v/ for hosts like Unix that permit commas
in file names, and is empty (i.e. just the empty suffix) for
other hosts.
-zzone specifies the date output format in keyword substitution, and
specifies the default time zone for date in the -ddate option.
The zone should be empty, a numeric UTC offset, or the special
string LT for local time. The default is an empty zone, which
uses the traditional RCS format of UTC without any time zone in-
dication and with slashes separating the parts of the date; oth-
erwise, times are output in ISO 8601 format with time zone indi-
cation. For example, if local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm Pa-
cific Standard Time, eight hours west of UTC, then the time is
output as follows:
option time output
-z 1990/01/12 04:00:00 (default)
-zLT 1990-01-11 20:00:00-08
-z+05:30 1990-01-12 09:30:00+05:30
The -z option does not affect dates stored in RCS files, which
are always UTC.
FILE NAMING
Pairs of RCS files and working files can be specified in three ways
(see also the example section).
1) Both the RCS file and the working file are given. The RCS file name
is of the form frag1/workfileX and the working file name is of the form
frag2/workfile where frag1/ and frag2/ are (possibly different or
empty) file names, workfile is a file name, and X is an RCS suffix. If
X is empty, frag1/ must start with RCS/ or must contain /RCS/.
2) Only the RCS file is given. Then the working file is created in the
current directory and its name is derived from the RCS file name by re-
moving frag1/ and the suffix X.
3) Only the working file is given. Then ci considers each RCS suffix X
in turn, looking for an RCS file of the form frag2/RCS/workfileX or (if
the former is not found and X is nonempty) frag2/workfileX.
If the RCS file is specified without a file name in 1) and 2), ci looks
for the RCS file first in the directory ./RCS and then in the current
directory.
ci reports an error if an attempt to open an RCS file fails for an un-
usual reason, even if the RCS file's name is just one of several possi-
bilities. For example, to suppress use of RCS commands in a directory
d, create a regular file named d/RCS so that casual attempts to use RCS
commands in d fail because d/RCS is not a directory.
EXAMPLES
Suppose ,v is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdi-
rectory RCS with an RCS file io.c,v. Then each of the following com-
mands check in a copy of io.c into RCS/io.c,v as the latest revision,
removing io.c.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c,v;
ci io.c RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c io.c,v;
ci RCS/io.c,v io.c; ci io.c,v io.c;
Suppose instead that the empty suffix is an RCS suffix and the current
directory contains a subdirectory RCS with an RCS file io.c. The each
of the following commands checks in a new revision.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c;
ci io.c RCS/io.c;
ci RCS/io.c io.c;
FILE MODES
An RCS file created by ci inherits the read and execute permissions
from the working file. If the RCS file exists already, ci preserves
its read and execute permissions. ci always turns off all write per-
missions of RCS files.
FILES
Temporary files are created in the directory containing the working
file, and also in the temporary directory (see TMPDIR under ENVIRON-
MENT). A semaphore file or files are created in the directory contain-
ing the RCS file. With a nonempty suffix, the semaphore names begin
with the first character of the suffix; therefore, do not specify an
suffix whose first character could be that of a working file name.
With an empty suffix, the semaphore names end with _ so working file
names should not end in _.
ci never changes an RCS file or working file. Normally, ci unlinks the
file and creates a new one; but instead of breaking a chain of one or
more symbolic links to an RCS file, it unlinks the destination file in-
stead. Therefore, ci breaks any hard or symbolic links to any working
file it changes; and hard links to RCS files are ineffective, but sym-
bolic links to RCS files are preserved.
The effective user must be able to search and write the directory con-
taining the RCS file. Normally, the real user must be able to read the
RCS and working files and to search and write the directory containing
the working file; however, some older hosts cannot easily switch be-
tween real and effective users, so on these hosts the effective user is
used for all accesses. The effective user is the same as the real user
unless your copies of ci and co have setuid privileges. As described
in the next section, these privileges yield extra security if the ef-
fective user owns all RCS files and directories, and if only the effec-
tive user can write RCS directories.
Users can control access to RCS files by setting the permissions of the
directory containing the files; only users with write access to the di-
rectory can use RCS commands to change its RCS files. For example, in
hosts that allow a user to belong to several groups, one can make a
group's RCS directories writable to that group only. This approach
suffices for informal projects, but it means that any group member can
arbitrarily change the group's RCS files, and can even remove them en-
tirely. Hence more formal projects sometimes distinguish between an
RCS administrator, who can change the RCS files at will, and other
project members, who can check in new revisions but cannot otherwise
change the RCS files.
SETUID USE
To prevent anybody but their RCS administrator from deleting revisions,
a set of users can employ setuid privileges as follows.
o Check that the host supports RCS setuid use. Consult a trustworthy
expert if there are any doubts. It is best if the seteuid system
call works as described in Posix 1003.1a Draft 5, because RCS can
switch back and forth easily between real and effective users, even
if the real user is root. If not, the second best is if the setuid
system call supports saved setuid (the {_POSIX_SAVED_IDS} behavior of
Posix 1003.1-1990); this fails only if the real or effective user is
root. If RCS detects any failure in setuid, it quits immediately.
o Choose a user A to serve as RCS administrator for the set of users.
Only A can invoke the rcs command on the users' RCS files. A should
not be root or any other user with special powers. Mutually suspi-
cious sets of users should use different administrators.
o Choose a file name B to be a directory of files to be executed by the
users.
o Have A set up B to contain copies of ci and co that are setuid to A
by copying the commands from their standard installation directory D
as follows:
mkdir B
cp D/c[io] B
chmod go-w,u+s B/c[io]
o Have each user prepend B to their command search path as follows:
PATH=B:$PATH; export PATH # ordinary shell
set path=(B $path) # C shell
o Have A create each RCS directory R with write access only to A as
follows:
mkdir R
chmod go-w R
o If you want to let only certain users read the RCS files, put the
users into a group G, and have A further protect the RCS directory as
follows:
chgrp G R
chmod g-w,o-rwx R
o Have A copy old RCS files (if any) into R, to ensure that A owns
them.
o An RCS file's access list limits who can check in and lock revisions.
The default access list is empty, which grants checkin access to any-
one who can read the RCS file. If you want limit checkin access,
have A invoke rcs -a on the file; see rcs(1). In particular,
rcs -e -aA limits access to just A.
o Have A initialize any new RCS files with rcs -i before initial
checkin, adding the -a option if you want to limit checkin access.
o Give setuid privileges only to ci, co, and rcsclean; do not give them
to rcs or to any other command.
o Do not use other setuid commands to invoke RCS commands; setuid is
trickier than you think!
ENVIRONMENT
RCSINIT
Options prepended to the argument list, separated by spaces. A
backslash escapes spaces within an option. The RCSINIT options
are prepended to the argument lists of most RCS commands. Use-
ful RCSINIT options include -q, -V, -x, and -z.
RCS_MEM_LIMIT
Normally, for speed, commands either memory map or copy into
memory the RCS file if its size is less than the memory-limit,
currently defaulting to ``unlimited''. Otherwise (or if the
initially-tried speedy ways fail), the commands fall back to us-
ing standard i/o routines. You can adjust the memory limit by
setting RCS_MEM_LIMIT to a numeric value lim (measured in kilo-
bytes). An empty value is silently ignored. As a side effect,
specifying RCS_MEM_LIMIT inhibits fall-back to slower routines.
TMPDIR Name of the temporary directory. If not set, the environment
variables TMP and TEMP are inspected instead and the first value
found is taken; if none of them are set, a host-dependent de-
fault is used, typically /tmp.
DIAGNOSTICS
For each revision, ci prints the RCS file, the working file, and the
number of both the deposited and the preceding revision. The exit sta-
tus is zero if and only if all operations were successful.
IDENTIFICATION
Author: Walter F. Tichy.
Manual Page Revision: 5.9.4; Release Date: 2019-12-31.
Copyright (C) 2010-2015 Thien-Thi Nguyen.
Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.
Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
SEE ALSO
co(1), emacs(1), ident(1), make(1), rcs(1), rcsclean(1), rcsdiff(1),
rcsmerge(1), rlog(1), setuid(2), rcsfile(5).
Walter F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control, Software--Practice
& Experience 15, 7 (July 1985), 637-654.
The full documentation for RCS is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If
the info(1) and RCS programs are properly installed at your site, the
command
info rcs
should give you access to the complete manual. Additionally, the RCS
homepage:
http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/
has news and links to the latest release, development site, etc.
GNU RCS 5.9.4 2019-12-31 CI(1)
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