simple question about binary files

[William Mulvihill]

I am currently evaluating CVS for use at my work place (I already use it for
some open source programs I do on the side) and I have a question about
binary files that I need to clarify before I can recommend we use it.

As I understand it, CVS stores the differences of text files so that you can
see what exact lines have been modified.  This is all well and good for the
programs I have worked on before since they were mostly C++ files and some
images that never changed.  I could pinpoint what lines were changed and
find problems quicker.  For this I am grateful.  But how does CVS deal with
files that you tag as binary (with -kb)?

For instance, we have some programs that have parts that are written in
Director by Macromedia and are subsequently complex binary files only
understood by Director (and other things of course, like Shockwave).  Now it
is a simple matter for me to use the cvswrappers file to flag these as
binary.  But what I want to know is how CVS deals with those binary files.
If you have a binary file in the CVS tree and you commit a new updated one
to the server, does CVS make a backup of that old file and then add the new
updated file in as the newest version?  Or does it remove the old one and
replace it with the new one?  I believe the case is that it backups the old
one before moving the new one in.  From hearing how CVS works and seeing how
I can get old text files from the CVS tree, I am assuming that you can do
the same with binary files.  This is probably a question that has been asked
here before so I apologize if this is a FAQ but I couldn't find anything
specific about it in the manual.  Thanks in advance.

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William Mulvihill, Web Master
DxR Development Group, Inc.
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