Re: binaries

[david]

> Hi, I'm new to version control software.
> 
> I read in the docs that CVS has some difficulty in dealing with 
> binaries...  yet the only example given deals with keywords.
> 
> I'm not sure I need keywords anyway.  I want to do CVS on our vendor 
> supplied source with our mods, and I don't *need* to have keywords in 
> our scripts auto-updated by cvs.  If I just globally turn this 
> functionality off, will binaries work fine?
>
The obvious problem that leaps to mind is that, if you are working
in any way with multiple platforms ("platforms" being defined as
Unix, MS Windows, and Mac), you will have potentially fatal line-ending
conversion.  This includes the popular option of Windows development
with a Linux CVS server (so the server can run on a reliable operating
system).

There may be other problems, but I'm not thinking of them offhand.
 
> I'd prefere not to turn them off on a file by file basis because, well, 
> there are thousands of files.  I'd hate to do an initial check in by hand.
>
If you can separate binary from text files based on file name, you
can use the "cvswrappers" file to specify binary files.  Write a
regular expression that matches, and follow it with "-k 'b'"
on each line.  (If all your files are binary, which is a bad fit
for CVS, it should at least be simple to write the regular
expression.)

Since you're referring to your mods to vendor-supplied stuff, I
assume that you're dealing with some text files, as merging
local and vendor updates on binary files is *not* what CVS
does best.
 
> Though maybe I could write a script to do the check-in manually for me...
> 
-- 
Now building a CVS reference site at http://www.thornleyware.com
address@hidden