RE: corruption upon checkin?

[Chris Moore]

Oh dear.  I just went to the Official RCS Homepage, downloaded the 3
.zip files, and now my problem is fixed.  I was previously using the
version that is available from any Simtel archive:

<http://download.uni-hd.de/ftp/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/rcs5713b.zi
p>
("GNU rcs 5.7pl13 for DJGPP V2")

The description claims it's patch level 13, but 'rcs -V' tells me:
RCS version 5.7 (RCS_SOFTLINKS patch 11)

Running 'rcs -V' on the binary I downloaded from the Official RCS
Homepage <http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/trinkle/RCS/rcs57pc1.zip> (and
parts 2 and 3) gives me an rcs.exe which claims to be just
"RCS version 5.7", ie. no patch level is specified.  Am I to take it
that it's not patched?

My problem now is that RCS won't recognise RCS\file,v or .\file,v as
being file's 'comma v' file.  The only place it seems to want to look is
in RCS\file - ie. the 'comma v' file isn't allowed to have a name that
ends with ',v'.  Can I get it to recognise ,v files again?  I guess the
version which I'm using now doesn't trust Windows to use long file
names, but I would like it to.

Chris.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Moore [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: 20 February 2003 02:40
> To: 'address@hidden'
> Subject: corruption upon checkin?
> 
> Hi.
> 
> I am using RCS under Windows XP and occasionally have a problem with
> the ,v file getting corrupted when I do a check in.  Usually about 600
> extra lines get inserted into the ,v file, making all but the most
recent
> checkin irretrievable.
> 
> Consequently I made a copy of the ,v file after each checkin, and
number
> then, much like how I used to do config management before I discovered
> there were programs like RCS.
> 
> I reproduce below quite a lot of shell interaction.  'cp' is the djgpp
> 'cp', but I doubt if it makes any difference.
> 
> I have a copy of the ,v file called 'unlocked,v', which isn't locked
by
> anyone.  I copy it to file,v so I can play with it without damanging
it:
> 
>       ? cp unlocked,v file,v
> 
> I check it out:
> 
>       ? co -l file,v
>       file,v  -->  file
>       revision 1.111 (locked)
>       done
> 
> And check that the checked out file is as it should be.  I have a copy
of
> what revision 1.111 looked like before it was checked in stored in a
file
> called 'old'.  I was working with it off-site for a long time - as you
can
> see, it was originally version 1.94.  I just brought 30 or so versions
> back on site, and managed to check them in in turn to create a new
1.95,
> 1.96, ... and so on.  This went file up to and including making
version
> 1.111, for as we see, the diff shows there to be no differences other
than
> the Id keyword:
> 
>       ? diff file old
>       3c3
>       < # $Id: file,v 1.111 2003/02/20 01:01:16 Chris Exp Chris $
>       ---
>       > # $Id: file,v 1.94 2002/11/21 13:32:28 Chris Exp Chris $
> 
> I then overwrite 'file' with the contents of 'new'.  'new' the next
> version of the file from off-site.  I want it to become version 1.112
of
> file,v:
> 
>       ? cp new file
> 
> The diffs between old and new are only around a hundred lines:
> 
>       ? diff new old | wc -l
>           122
> 
> And 'rcsdiff' reports only around a hundred lines of differences, too,
as
> you would expect (in fact the 4 extra lines of diffs it finds are the
same
> as the 4 lines output by the 'diff file old' command above, so
everything
> is still as we would expect:
> 
>       ? rcsdiff file | wc -l
>
===================================================================
>       RCS file: file,v
>       retrieving revision 1.111
>       diff -r1.111 file
>           126
> 
> Before we do anything else, let's check the size of versions 1.1, 1.11
and
> 1.111:
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.1 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.1
>          5531   21787  172335
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.11 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.11
>          6406   25811  204082
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.111 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.111
>          5257   20522  164055
> 
> So I check the file in, making new version 1.112:
> 
>       ? ci file
>       file,v  <--  file
>       new revision: 1.112; previous revision: 1.111
>       .
>       done
> 
> But now, looking at 'rlog' we start to see things have gone wrong:
> 
>       ? rlog file | head -20
> 
>       RCS file: file,v
>       Working file: file
>       head: 1.112
>       branch:
>       locks: strict
>       access list:
>       symbolic names:
>       keyword substitution: kv
>       total revisions: 112;   selected revisions: 112
>       description:
>       .
>       ----------------------------
>       revision 1.112
>       date: 2003/02/20 01:33:28;  author: Chris;  state: Exp;  lines:
+21
> -     611
>       .
>       ----------------------------
>       revision 1.111
>       date: 2003/02/20 01:01:16;  author: Chris;  state: Exp;  lines:
+4 -
> 0
>       comment to be supplied later?
> 
> What's that with version 1.112?  611 lines were deleted?  So version
1.112
> must have been corrupted then - let's check:
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.112 file | diff - new
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.112
>       3c3
>       < # $Id: file,v 1.112 2003/02/20 02:04:54 Chris Exp $
>       ---
>       > # $Id: file,v 1.94 2002/11/21 13:32:28 Chris Exp Chris $
> 
> Nope - it seems to be fine.  So where are those extra 600 lines?
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.1 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.1
>          6142   23951  190584                 [ was 5531   21787
172335 ]
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.11 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.11
>          7017   27952  221978                 [ was 6406   25811
204082 ]
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.111 file | wc
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.111
>          5868   22701  181155                 [ was 5257   20522
164055  ]
> 
> Notice each of 1.1, 1.11 and 1.111 are now 611 lines longer than they
were,
> and than they should be!
> 
> File 'new' should be the same length as revision 1.112, and is:
> 
>       ? wc -l new
>          5278 new
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.112 file | wc -l
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.112
>          5278
> 
> File 'old' should be the same length as revision 1.111, but isn't:
> 
>       ? wc -l old
>          5257 old
> 
>       ? co -p -r1.111 file | wc -l
>       file,v  -->  standard output
>       revision 1.111
>          5868
> 
> These are the version strings:
> 
>       ? rcs -V
>       RCS version 5.7 (RCS_SOFTLINKS patch 11)
> 
>       ? ci -V
>       RCS version 5.7 (RCS_SOFTLINKS patch 11)
> 
>       ? co -V
>       RCS version 5.7 (RCS_SOFTLINKS patch 11)
> 
>       diff -v
>       Copyright 1988, 89, 92, 93, 94, 96, 1998 Free Software
Foundation,
> Inc.
> 
>       This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
law.
>       You may redistribute copies of this program
>       under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
>       For more information about these matters, see the file named
COPYING.
> 
>       Written by Paul Eggert, Mike Haertel, David Hayes,
>       Richard Stallman, and Len Tower.
> 
> Any ideas why this happens occasionally?  It is entirely reproducible.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Chris.
> --
> address@hidden