Re: cvs init on pre-existing old repository ok?

[Mark D. Baushke]

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Bulgrien, Kevin <address@hidden> writes:

> The original question was:
> 
> A user did a cvs init on an existing repository.  Is this generally safe,
> or might it be advisable to go back and check for differences against a
> backup?

A 'cvs init' is always a safe operation modulo the fact that it will
rebuild your CVSROOT administrative files (ie, do an update of them).

For your purposes it would be the same as if you had done a 'cvs add' of
a new file in CVSROOT and committed it. If you had uncommitted changes
to files in your repository, you were asking for trouble in any case.

> CVS version is 1.11.17
> 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-cvs/2004-05/msg00050.html
> 
> presumably contains an applicable answer:
> 
> > The 'cvs init' should only add files that are not already present but
> > are needed by cvs."
> 
>  ...
> 
> > The 'cvs init' function should not do anything bad to your files unless
> > you happen to have files in the $CVSROOT/CVSROOT that do not match the
> > top-of-tree version in their corresponding ,v file in the checkoutlist.
> >
> > It is probably a good idea to create a test copy of the CVSROOT
> > directory into another repository and run the 'cvs init' command to see
> > what it does to your test setup before you do the real thing.
> >
> >        Good luck,
> >        -- Mark
> 
> It does appear that one needs to check a backup in order to be sure since
> the full context of the cvs init operation is not known.

I suppose that depends on your level of paranoia.

You really do want to do a 'cvs init' whenever you install a new version
of cvs in any case.

        -- Mark

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