Re: Code-wise, How Does CVS Do Versioning?

[Larry Jones]

dave writes:
> 
> This is more or less a question about the workings of the CVS archive.
> I am assuming a tag/label is a set of file pointers.  So, when you ask
> for all the files withing a certain tag/label, it just traverses these
> pointers.  If this is not how CVS works internally, please correct me
> and inform me how it uses the tag/label meta-data to reconstruct a view
> from a label/tag.  But, my question is still assuming the file pointer
> scenario.

CVS works the other way around -- repository files contain tags which
are pointers to revisions.  So, when you ask for all files with a
certain tag, CVS scans all the files in the (specified part of) the
repository, checks each file for the specified tag and, if it exists,
extracts the pointed-to revision of the file.  Tags have no existance
outside of the repository files and there is not necessarily any
relationship between tags in two different files with the same name
(they may have been created at different times by different people, one
may be a revision tag and the other a branch tag, etc.).

-Larry Jones

Bad news, Mom.  I promised my soul to the Devil this afternoon. -- Calvin