Re: Update by State

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 13:43:28 (-0500), Karl Martin wrote: ]
> Subject: Update by State
>
> The State of a file, changed using 'cvs admin -s', is something that can
> only be changed by archive administrators, so it is attractive for this
> purpose.  Tags are not attractive, as I don't think that file
> permissions can be set up so that any one user can check in files but
> cannot change tags.

That's a silly reason to want to do something with a feature that's
really orthogonal to your requirements.....

> Cederqvist refers to State as "useful with CVS."  However, I really
> can't figure out how.

That's because the manual is wrong (or at least very misleading).

>  It does not seem to be an option for sticky
> updates, or any other use except for keyword substitution.

Indeed.

The RCS "state" feature is also used internally for purposes private to
the CVS implementation and thus user use could conflict with this
private use.

>  We want to
> use CVS for binary files, not text files, so I don't see how to use
> keyword substitution.

Then you're really out on a limb.  CVS is meant for source files stored
in a textual form which can be logically merged with reasonable success
and few conflicts using the 'diff3' algorithms.  Attempting to use CVS
for binary files can lead to all sorts of problems, not all of which are
initially obvious.  Use the right tool for the job.  CVS is not really
the right tool for any job involving change management of binary files.

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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