setting up branch with code changes already in it

[Royce]

Hi all,

I have read through a few tutorial pages and past messages but haven't
found the answer - have a source tree on trunk and have a bunch of
changed files in it. I want to create a branch and check in the
changed files to the branch. Based on a tutorial I found, I have done
this so far:

(from top directory within tree)
cvs tag v2_0_unstable_root
cvs tag -b -r v2_0_unstable_root v2_0_unstable

I have not checked in the files because I wanted to be sure they will
check into the branch. How can I verify the code will check into the
branch? cvs log doesn't seem to show that info. I read somewhere that
the branch gets created on commit - is that true?

Also I was surprised that a test change from a trunk-based file in a
separate directory hierarchy did get checked out into my (hopefully)
branched hierarchy though I would have thought a "cvs up" in the
branch wouldn't pick up new trunk changes.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Royce