CVS file repository

They have: 426 posts

Joined: Feb 2005

What is CVS format and why do alot of download places offer CVS download as well as .zip and .rar and hashed versions. Im unsure as to what the differences are?

He has: 1,380 posts

Joined: Feb 2002

Do you mean CSV? CSV = comma separated values, basically the .txt version of an excel/spreadsheet file

If you DO mean CVS, CVS is a "content versioning system"... basically like how a "build" works for software.

Does that make sense?

They have: 426 posts

Joined: Feb 2005

Yes i do mean CVS "versioning system" But how does it work. Can you give me some examples as to what it is and does?!

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

CVS is a version control application. Version control repositories manage the code of development projects; developers can upload changes and the version control system keeps track of who uploaded what. A release (what you would normally download in tar, zip and rar formats) is a snapshot of the code in version control at a particular moment in time. New and old versions of code can be compared with each other to help troubleshooting etc.

Other version control programs are: SVN, GIT and Bazaar NG (note: this is not an exhaustive list, just the ones I can remember off-hand). The most popular version control application is currently SVN (Subversion) although people will often say 'CVS' even though they mean 'SVN', until quite recently CVS was the most popular system so has almost become synonymous with version control. Smiling

If you download from a CVS repository (or 'repo' as they're often called) you're usually downloaded the very latest, still being worked on, code. Usually if you want a stable program it's better to stick with official releases (although there are exceptions, FFMPEG is one).

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They have: 426 posts

Joined: Feb 2005

Jeeves, how is it that you seem to know absolutely everything...its incredible...where do you go to learn this stuff..what do you do for a living and where do you work?!!!

He has: 1,380 posts

Joined: Feb 2002

Some people just appear to know it all... I mean, I was going to write the same thing, but he beat me to it... Wink

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

benf wrote: Jeeves, how is it that you seem to know absolutely everything

If you think I know everything you should meet Abhi, he knows Lisp (probably used by terrorists and people who are really 1337 h4xX0r)!

benf wrote: where do you go to learn this stuff

t'Internet mostly. To learn all this stuff you just have to want to. In my own eyes, my knowledge is limited: I see flaws in it every day. Your comment caused me quite a shock! So keep Googling, asking questions on here and you'll soon know more than I do. Smiling

benf wrote: what do you do for a living and where do you work?!!!

At the moment I'm a professional Canadian immigrant and self employed person. I'm available for hire *shameless plug* for web stuff: front end (html/css) and programming (mainly PHP, VB6/ASP, Javascript, I can even do a bit of Haskell {still learning though}, would also like an excuse to learn Ruby on Rails).
Prior to this I worked at a credit card machine manufacturer, on their web based Terminal Management System. That was before I met my wife on this forum and decided to move to Canada. Smiling

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He has: 1,380 posts

Joined: Feb 2002

Quote:
t'Internet mostly. To learn all this stuff you just have to want to. In my own eyes, my knowledge is limited: I see flaws in it every day.

Very true. For those that remember my past incarnations on this forum, I was pretty much ... terrible. I needed help to debug or create even the most simple of things. But I kept at it, and (like JeevesBond said) used the Internet. How-To's, online [and searchable] manuals, Google, etc.

And, I agree, again. Abhi can pretty much answer any question, when he shows up anyways. He even loaned me some serverspace back in the day...

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

I want to set up a remote server based repository for CVS - mainly to manage files for Drupal sites (not for drupal.org, just sites using Drupal - but need to have CVS for multiple people working on the files)

I have installed CVS (and TortoiseSVN) on my local machine

(I used TortoiseSVN to obtain files from a repository a while back)

First question, should I use CVS or SVN? Does it matter?

I have a (few) shared Linux/Apache accounts, probably want to set up the repository on my BlueHost account with domain netsperience.org

I tried connecting to the server with CVS with domain name, and IP, and different configurations, after right clicking on the local folder I want to upload to a new repository - but I got error mesages. Tortoise just gives me the option to connect to the SVN repository I used previously.

Can I set up the repository on the remote server myself? Using Putty (which I have never used, BTW)? How?

If I need to get BlueHost to do it, what is the best way to instruct them? If I set up one repository, can I add folders for different projects (CVS modules?) to it?

I've been reading through the manuals, but I am (almost) a CVS virgin and need some guidance.

I know there are folks here who know exactly what I need to do!

Thanks! Sticking out tongue

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

SVN (Subversion) is the better option.

TortoiseSVN does have a graphical way to create repositories on your server.

I'm pretty sure that you need shell access to initially create the repository and setup the permissions. Then, TortoiseSVN should be able to handle it from there. There are many tutorials out there for setting up an SVN server.

Once the repository is setup, there are two protocols you can use to access it. The first one is the svn:// protocol, but that requires an additional open port. An alternative is using an Apache module, so the repository can be accessed through the http:// protocol. The downside to using the Apache module is that it is not compatible with Apache's name virtual host option. If I create the repository 'test', it would be available at http://example.com/test. If you have a website hosted on my server, and you had a page located at http://netsperience.org/test, it would point to my repository and not your file if that makes sense. For that reason, I host my repositories on the svn:// protocol.

Not all hosts have subversion installed on their server, so you may need to check around to see who has it available. I have it installed on my servers, and I could host one for you (for a fee, of course). Hosting your code in repositories is definitely a good idea, even if you don't share it with anyone. I use it to work on websites at an alternate location, and then push changes to the live site all at once and with no downtime.

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