[cvsnt] compatibility cvsnt w/ cvs 1.11.x (cyclic)

Rick Silton rick_silton at yahoo.com
Mon May 19 21:00:39 BST 2003


Hi,

I'm hoping to use CVSNT (will be running on Linux if that matters) but I
noticed some comments on the wiki documentation that have me concerned.  In
particular, I need to be able to build my repository from a lot of existing
RCS files.  I have, and was planning on using the rcs-to-cvs.sh script
(contributed by Per Cederqvist ,David MacKenzie, Brian Berliner, et.al.) but
I saw, in http://www.cvsnt.org/wiki/ViewCvs, the following comment that
makes me think this won't work:

>"As the RCS file format used with recent CVSNT versions varies slightly
from the old RCS 5.7 >format, you may need to use the wrappers that are
supplied with CVSNT to successfully run >ViewCVS"

Can someone please provide details on the file format difference?  Should I
be concerned or are they backward compatible?  Has the rcs-to-cvs script
changed to compensate?  Also, I am planning on providing ViewCVS access, but
couldn't find anything about the wrappers that are mentioned - any info
regarding them would be appreciated!

Lastly, I have a fairly large number of users that will be running their
clients on linux (either command line or cervisia), and I cannot ensure that
they will upgrade to CVSNT (even though I intend to give them a RPM
install).  Obviously they won't be able to take advantage of the new
capabilities, but are there other issues that I should be aware of?  It
appears the basic commands (co, update, commit, etc) work, but given the
comments below (from http://www.cvsnt.org/wiki/CvsChapter195) there seem to
some differences in the working copy.  What are they and how will they
affect the users?  Will there be problems if a user checks out a working
copy using a cyclic client and then accesses later using cvsnt?

>"The repository format is compatible going back to CVSNT 1.3. But see
[CvsChapter102 11.6.5 Using >watches with old versions of CVS], if you have
copies of CVSNT 1.6 or older and you want to use the >optional developer
communication features.
>The working directory format is compatible going back to CVSNT 1.5. It did
change between CVSNT >1.3 and CVSNT 1.5. If you run CVSNT 1.5 or newer on a
working directory checked out with CVSNT >1.3, CVSNT will convert it, but to
go back to CVSNT 1.3 you need to check out a new working >directory with
CVSNT 1.3.
>The remote protocol is interoperable going back to CVSNT 1.5, but no
further (1.5 was the first >official release with the remote protocol, but
some older versions might still be floating around). In >many cases you need
to upgrade both the client and the server to take advantage of new features
and >bugfixes, however.
>cvsnt is largely compatible with older versions of cvs, however newer
features of cvsnt such as >permissions might not be recognized by older
clients."

Thanks!

- Rick




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