RE: Information about multiple checkouts

[Thornley, David]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bhavaniprasad Polimetla
> [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 7:01 AM
> To: CVS
> Subject: Information about multiple checkouts
> 
> 
> Dear Sir,
> 
> I have the following situation.
> 
> User a checked out file abc.java
> When user b try to check out, it need to tell that user a already
> checked out that file.
> How can I implement it in CVS?
> 
First, exactly what do you mean by checkout?  In some systems, it gives
you a copy of the file and a lock, so that you are the only one
allowed to work on it.  In CVS, it gives you a copy of the files
and allows CVS to manage them (by means of metadata in a CVS
directory).  The assumption in CVS is that everybody who works
on a project will have their own local copy of everything that
concerns them.

The standard way to implement something like lockin in CVS is to
"cvs watch on" and ask developers to use "cvs edit" to unlock files
before changing them.  This is advisory only, and there is no way
to enforce locking, but if your developers will deliberately
bypass your procedures you've got a much worse problem than any
version control system can solve.  In practice, advisory locks
work just as well as hard locks.