Re: Why CVSREAD?

[Richard Wesley]

> Lo, on Wednesday, January 24, David L. Martin did write:
>
> >  ----- Original Message -----
> >  From: "Richard Cobbe" <address@hidden>
> >  >
> >  > What's the CVSREAD variable for?
> >  >
> >  > I know what it does, but I was (and remain) hard-pressed to come up with a
> >  > situation in which this behavior would be useful.  I'm assuming that such
> >  > situations exist; could someone provide an example?
> >
> >  This is typically used when you want to loosely enforce the rule
> >  that developers should do a cvs edit prior to actually working on
> >  a file.  Cvs edit makes a read-only file writable in addition to
> >  registering the developer to be an editor of the file.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Sounds reasonable enough.  But, rather than checking out *every* file
> read-only, why not use `cvs watch on'?  According to section 10.6.1 of the
> Cederqvist (node `Setting a watch'), applying this command to specific
> files will cause those files (and no others) to be checked out read-only,
> requiring a `cvs edit' to make them read-write.

Assuming that you want to have watch on all files, then maybe CVSREAD 
is a little less baroque.  But maybe not ;-)

Your comment also sort of implies that all projects are as organized 
as yours, which isn't always the case.  CVSREAD as a default makes a 
lot of sense here to provide a basic setup that is easy to configure.

> Is CVSREAD perhaps a holdover from an earlier version of CVS that didn't
> support watches?

I believe so.

I actually have had a very odd use for it.  Some VCS integration 
systems (e.g. CodeWarrior) require a "checked in" state and read-only 
is a very useful way to fake this so that CVS can be shoehorned into 
such systems.  By setting the CVSREAD environment variable, I can 
make the files have the kinds of state that the IDE requires without 
mucking up the watchers state.

- rmgw

http://www.electricfish.com/hawkfish/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Wesley           Electric Fish, Inc.       address@hidden

"Grownups have the most uninteresting explanations for things."
                 - C. S. Lewis, _The Magician's Nephew_