n00b - need help with LS (with CVSROOT not set)

[Baron Samedi]

I am tasked with writing a GUI front end for CVS - which would be fine
if it weren't that I haven't used CVS in about ten years :-(


Basically, there is a repository which stores documentation, not code.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but there is no directory
structure - everything is thrown into one directory.

Documents have a numbering scheme:  <Project>-<Subsystem>-doc type>-
<version>, so something like PRJ-ABC-TS-0101

I just want to list all files currently in the repository, and then I
can offer some dropdown lists where the user can select a project and/
or a subsystem and/or a doc type and the program will retrieve all
files matching that spec.

So, I guess that I just need a LS and a GET or two.

The only slight hitch is that I am not sure if the users will have set
the CVSROOT environment variable (and some will have set it, but for
the source code repository, which is different).  Can I pass that on
the command line? Or does that make no sense?

If I can't pass it as an argument to LS and GET, then maybe I can
created a temporary dos batch file which sets CVSROOT and executed LS
or GET.

Any help gratefully received. While waiting, I will RTFM.

Thanks in advance.