2.2.1 Where files are stored within the repository

The overall structure of the repository is a directory tree corresponding to the directories in the working directory. For example, supposing the repository is in

/usr/local/cvsroot

here is a possible directory tree (showing only the directories):

/usr | +--local | | | +--cvsroot | | | | | +--CVSROOT | (administrative files) | +--gnu | | | +--diff | | (source code to GNU diff) | | | +--rcs | | (source code to RCS) | | | +--cvs | (source code to CVS) | +--yoyodyne | +--tc | | | +--man | | | +--testing | +--(other Yoyodyne software)

With the directories are history files for each file under version control. The name of the history file is the name of the corresponding file with `,v' appended to the end. Here is what the repository for the `yoyodyne/tc' directory might look like:

$CVSROOT | +--yoyodyne | | | +--tc | | | +--Makefile,v +--backend.c,v +--driver.c,v +--frontend.c,v +--parser.c,v +--man | | | +--tc.1,v | +--testing | +--testpgm.t,v +--test2.t,v

The history files contain, among other things, enough information to recreate any revision of the file, a log of all commit messages and the user-name of the person who committed the revision. The history files are known as RCS files, because the first program to store files in that format was a version control system known as RCS. For a full description of the file format, see the man page rcsfile(5), distributed with RCS, or the file `doc/RCSFILES' in the CVS source distribution. This file format has become very common--many systems other than CVS or RCS can at least import history files in this format.

The RCS files used in CVS differ in a few ways from the standard format. The biggest difference is magic branches; for more information see 5.5 Magic branch numbers. Also in CVS the valid tag names are a subset of what RCS accepts; for CVS's rules see 4.4 Tags--Symbolic revisions.