Re: vendor tag

[Paul Sander]

There's no sure-fire 100% absolute method to discover if there's a vendor
branch.  But there are two heuristics that are close enough for practical
purposes.

First, if the RCS file's "branch:" attribute is set then its value is name
of the vendor branch.  But that attribute is cleared during the first commit
of the file on the trunk.

Otherwise, if there's a tag that contains a pure RCS branch number (i.e.
not a magic branch), then it's extremely likely that that is the vendor
branch.  Typically, that branch number is "1.1.1".

Vendor tags are like any other version tag; you can't tell them apart
from any other just by looking at them.  But you find one in which every
version it points to is on the vendor branch (note that it might not
exist in every RCS file), then it's very likely to be a vendor tag.

It may be easier to adopt naming conventions to identify vendor tags and
branches.  They can be set up after the fact, if necessary.

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How can a vendor tag and vendor branch be verified as being present?  I
looked at the cvs history, cvs log and cvs status and didn't see anything
that was labeled as something that struck me as ... aha, this is a vendor
branch.  Is it just one of the symbolic names like another tag because a tag
is simply a tag and a branch is simply a branch?

I've included two small examples below.  The first one has a branch of 1.1.1
and a symbolic name of "SomeText: 1.1.1".   This looks to me like simply a
branch that has the a tag "SomeText".  Is there anyway to distinguish it as
being a vendor branch?

The second one has the symbolic name of "SomeText: 1.1.1" but no branch
listed.  I would think if it was a vendor tag, it would not be on the file
with no branch listed. 

head: 1.1
branch: 1.1.1
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
        V2_1: 1.1.1.1
        SomeText: 1.1.1
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 2;     selected revisions: 2


head: 1.2
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
        V2_1: 1.1.1.1
        SomeText: 1.1.1
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 3;     selected revisions: 3

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