paterra@cs.odu.edu (Frank C. Paterra) (08/24/90)
We're looking for a commercial product that runs on DOS, Unix, or VMS and supports document markup and editing at multiple remote sites but retains final change control management at a central site. Text-only is adequate, but management and or editing of engineering type graphics would be a plus. Network Technologies Internation offered a product in 1987 called docuFORUM that seemed to address these needs, but we can't raise them now. Any other products out there? -- Frank Paterra paterra@cs.odu.edu
ngb@otter.hpl.hp.com (Neal Baker) (08/24/90)
I am in a team which has exactly the requirments of a joint authoring package
as you, and we find that 'rcs' under unix is adequate. We hold our central
master files on a server and each work on our own copies on individual
workstations. When an update is complt5ete we check the file back to the
server, an action overseen by rcs. Rcs will maintain a tree structure of
versions, any historical version or lineage can be retrieved.
Remote file access (rfa) allows the workstations each to mount the remote
server disk so that it appears as part of the workstation's directory
structure. The version of unix that we use is Hewlett Packard's HP-UX v7.0
but I don't know whether rcs is provided by other vendors. The manual entry
for rcs follows.
Neal Baker
Hewlett Packard Laboratories
Filton Road
Bristol, England
ngb@hplb.hp.co.uk
_________________________________________________________________________
RCS(1) RCS(1)
NAME
rcs - change RCS file attributes
SYNOPSIS
rcs [ options ] file ...
DESCRIPTION
Rcs creates new RCS files or changes attributes of existing
ones. An RCS file contains multiple revisions of text, an
access list, a change log, descriptive text, and some
control attributes. For rcs to work, the caller's login
name must be on the access list, except if the access list
is empty, if the caller is the owner of the file or the
superuser, or if the -i option is present.
The caller of the command must have read/write permission
for the directory containing the RCS file and read
permission for the RCS file itself. Rcs creates a semaphore
file in the same directory as the RCS file to prevent
simultaneous update. For changes, rcs always creates a new
file. On successful completion, rcs deletes the old one and
renames the new one. This strategy makes links to RCS files
useless.
Files ending in ",v" are RCS files, all others are working
files. If a working file is given, rcs tries to find the
corresponding RCS file first in directory ./RCS and then in
the current directory, as explained in rcsintro(5).
Options
-alogins Appends the login names appearing in the
comma-separated list logins to the access
list of the RCS file.
-Aoldfile Appends the access list of oldfile to the
access list of the RCS file.
-cstring Sets the comment leader to string. The
comment leader is printed before every log
message line generated by the keyword $Log$
during check out (see co(1)). This is useful
for programming languages without multi-line
comments. During rcs -i or initial ci(1),
the comment leader is guessed from the suffix
of the working file.
-e[logins] Erases the login names appearing in the
comma-separated list logins from the access
list of the RCS file. If logins is omitted,
the entire access list is erased.
Hewlett-Packard Company - 1 - HP-UX Release 7.0: Sept 1989
RCS(1) RCS(1)
-i Creates and initializes a new RCS file, but
does not deposit any revision. If the RCS
file has no path prefix, rcs tries to place
it first into the subdirectory ./RCS, and
then into the current directory. If the RCS
file already exists, an error message is
printed.
-l[rev] Locks the revision with number rev. If a
branch is given, the latest revision on that
branch is locked. If rev is omitted, the
latest revision on the trunk is locked.
Locking prevents overlapping changes. A lock
is removed with ci(1) or rcs -u (see below).
-L Sets locking to strict. Strict locking means
that the owner of an RCS file is not exempt
from locking for check in. This option
should be used for files that are shared.
-nname[:[rev]] Associates the symbolic name name with the
branch or revision rev. Rcs prints an error
message if name is already associated with
another number. If rev is omitted, the
symbolic name is associated with the latest
revision on the trunk. If :rev is omitted,
the symbolic name is deleted.
-Nname[:[rev]] Same as -n, except that it overrides a
previous assignment of name.
-orange Deletes ("obsoletes") the revisions given by
range. A range consisting of a single
revision number means that revision. A range
consisting of a branch number means the
latest revision on that branch. A range of
the form rev1-rev2 means revisions rev1 to
rev2 on the same branch, -rev means from the
beginning of the branch containing rev up to
and including rev, and rev- means from
revision rev to the head of the branch
containing rev. None of the outdated
revisions may have branches or locks.
-q Quiet mode; diagnostics are not printed.
-sstate[:rev] Sets the state attribute of the revision rev
to state. If rev is omitted, the latest
revision on the trunk is assumed. If rev is
a branch number, the latest revision on that
branch is assumed. Any identifier is
Hewlett-Packard Company - 2 - HP-UX Release 7.0: Sept 1989
RCS(1) RCS(1)
acceptable for state. A useful set of states
is Exp (for experimental), Stab (for stable),
and Rel (for released). By default, ci(1)
sets the state of a revision to Exp.
-t[txtfile] Writes descriptive text into the RCS file
(deletes the existing text). If txtfile is
omitted, rcs prompts the user for text
supplied from the standard input, terminated
with a line containing a single "." or
control-D. Otherwise, the descriptive text
is copied from the file txtfile. If the -i
option is present, descriptive text is
requested even if -t is not given. The
prompt is suppressed if the standard input is
not a terminal.
-u[rev] Unlocks the revision with number rev. If a
branch is given, the latest revision on that
branch is unlocked. If rev is omitted, the
latest lock held by the caller is removed.
Normally, only the locker of a revision may
unlock it. Somebody else unlocking a
revision breaks the lock. This causes a mail
message to be sent to the original locker.
The message contains a commentary solicited
from the breaker. The commentary is
terminated with a line containing a single
"." or control-D.
-U Sets locking to non-strict. Non-strict
locking means that the owner of a file need
not lock a revision for check in. This option
should NOT be used for files that are shared.
The default (-L or -U) is determined by your
system administrator.
Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Do not add optional ACL entries to an RCS file, because they
are deleted when the file is updated. The resulting access
modes for the new file might not be as desired.
DIAGNOSTICS
The RCS filename and the revisions outdated are written to
the diagnostic output. The exit status always refers to the
last RCS file operated upon, and is 0 if the operation was
successful, 1 if unsuccessful.
EXAMPLES
The command:
Hewlett-Packard Company - 3 - HP-UX Release 7.0: Sept 1989
RCS(1) RCS(1)
rcs -ajane,mary,dave,jeff vision
adds the names jane, mary, dave, and jeff to the access list
of the RCS file vision,v.
The command:
rcs -c'tab*' vision
sets the comment leader to tab* for the file vision.
The command:
rcs -Nsso/6_0:38.1 vision
associates the symbolic name sso/6_0, with revision 38.1 of
the file vision.
The command:
rcs -l38.1 vision,v
locks revision 38.1 of the file vision,v so that only the
locker is permitted to check in (see ci(1)) the next
revision of the file. This command prevents two or more
people from simultaneously revising the same file and
inadvertently overwriting each other's work.
AUTHOR
Rcs was developed by Walter F. Tichy, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN 47907.
Revision Number: 3.0; Release Date: 83/05/11.
Copyright 1982 by Walter F. Tichy.
SEE ALSO
co(1), ci(1), rcsdiff(1), rcsintro(5), rcsmerge(1), rlog(1),
rcsfile(4), acl(5).
Hewlett-Packard Company - 4 - HP-UX Release 7.0: Sept 1989janssen@parc.xerox.com (Bill Janssen) (08/30/90)
In article <20040001@otter.hpl.hp.com> ngb@otter.hpl.hp.com (Neal Baker) writes:
but I don't know whether rcs is provided by other vendors.
RCS is available on the GNU "prerelease software" tape, available for $150 from
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-876-3296
The tape includes:
* GCC (the GNU C Compiler, including COFF support)
* G++ (the C++ front end to GCC)
* lib-g++ (the G++ class library)
* NIH Class Library (formerly known as OOPS)
* Bash (GNUs' Bourne Again SHell)
* Bison (a free, compatible replacement for yacc)
* Flex (Vern Paxson fast rewrite of lex)
* Ghostscript (a Postscript interpreter)
* Gawk (the GNU implementation of the AWK programming language)
* Gas (the GNU Assembler)
* GDB (beta version of the GNU source-level C debugger)
* Gnuplot (an interactive mathematical plotting program)
* Compress (a file compression program)
* Perl (version 3.0; a programming language interpreter)
* RCS (Revision Control System)
* CVS (Concurrent Control System)
* GNU object file utilities (ar, ld, make, gprof, size, nm,
strip, ranlib, et al.)
* other GNU utilities (make, diff, grep, tar, et al.)
* GNU GO (the GNU implementation of the game of GO)
* the freed files from the 4.3BSD-Tahoe distribution
You can also FTP it from a number of sources, the canonical one of which
seems to be "arthur.cs.purdue.edu" (128.10.2.1).
Bill
--
Bill Janssen janssen@parc.xerox.com (415) 494-4763
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California 94304