Re: How to share files between CVS projects?

[Todd Denniston]

Adam Lipscombe wrote:
> 
> Folks,
> 
> Apologies if this question is a no-brainer. I have basic CVS knowledge but
> not more.
> 
> I have 2 versions of source code. In each version only a very few files are
> different - about 5 in total out of a total of @950.
> What I want to do is to share the files that are not different to be shared
> between projects, and to maintain separate versions of the 5 differing
> files.

1) If you mean that you have two projects that use the same source, however
each has some files with specific mods in just a few of the files and only
those changes can not share between the two, I would think what you would
want is to branch (cvs tag -b tagname).

the further choice would be, do you do development on the trunk in a generic
manner and have two branches and update the branches only when the generic
set has stabilized. or do you have one of the projects be the main one (on
the trunk) and only update the other one on the branch when the main one
stabilizes, i.e., Third Party Codeline[2].

I suggest look at the ACME project [1] for ideas.

[1] http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/acme/
    http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/acme/branching/
[2]
http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/acme/branching/branch-structs.html#ThirdPartyLine

2) If on the other hand you have a situation where each project essentially
use a library of other code and have completely different non common files,
then having the non common in their own sub repositories and using ampersand
modules would be a good idea.

> 
> In VSS I think one can do this by "pinning" the files.
> But I am not sure how to achieve this with CVS.
> 


-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane) 
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter