Here are the requests:
Root pathname \nCVSROOT to use.
Note that pathname is a local directory and not a fully
qualified CVSROOT variable. pathname must
already exist; if creating a new root, use the init request, not
Root. pathname does not include the hostname of the
server, how to access the server, etc.; by the time the CVS protocol is
in use, connection, authentication, etc., are already taken care of.
The Root request must be sent only once, and it must be sent
before any requests other than Valid-responses,
valid-requests, UseUnchanged, Set,
Global_option, init, noop, or version.
Valid-responses request-list \nRoot request need not have been previously sent.
valid-requests \nValid-requests response.
The Root request need not have been previously sent.
Directory local-directory \nEntry and Modified and
also for ci and the other commands; normal usage is to send
Directory for each directory in which there will be an
Entry or Modified, and then a final Directory
for the original directory, then the command.
The local-directory is relative to
the top level at which the command is occurring (i.e. the last
Directory which is sent before the command);
to indicate that top level, . should be sent for
local-directory.
Here is an example of where a client gets repository and local-directory. Suppose that there is a module defined by
moddir 1dir
That is, one can check out moddir and it will take 1dir in
the repository and check it out to moddir in the working
directory. Then an initial check out could proceed like this:
C: Root /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot
. . .
C: Argument moddir
C: Directory .
C: /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot
C: co
S: Clear-sticky moddir/
S: /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot/1dir/
. . .
S: ok
In this example the response shown is Clear-sticky, but it could
be another response instead. Note that it returns two pathnames.
The first one, moddir/, indicates the working
directory to check out into. The second one, ending in 1dir/,
indicates the directory to pass back to the server in a subsequent
Directory request. For example, a subsequent update
request might look like:
C: Directory moddir
C: /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot/1dir
. . .
C: update
For a given local-directory, the repository will be the same for each of the responses, so one can use the repository from whichever response is most convenient. Typically a client will store the repository along with the sources for each local-directory, use that same setting whenever operating on that local-directory, and not update the setting as long as the local-directory exists.
A client is free to rename a local-directory at any time (for
example, in response to an explicit user request). While it is true
that the server supplies a local-directory to the client, as noted
above, this is only the default place to put the directory. Of course,
the various Directory requests for a single command (for example,
update or ci request) should name a particular directory
with the same local-directory.
Each Directory request specifies a brand-new
local-directory and repository; that is,
local-directory and repository are never relative to paths
specified in any previous Directory request.
Here's a more complex example, in which we request an update of a working directory which has been checked out from multiple places in the repository.
C: Argument dir1
C: Directory dir1
C: /home/foo/repos/mod1
. . .
C: Argument dir2
C: Directory dir2
C: /home/foo/repos/mod2
. . .
C: Argument dir3
C: Directory dir3/subdir3
C: /home/foo/repos/mod3
. . .
C: update
While directories dir1 and dir2 will be handled in similar
fashion to the other examples given above, dir3 is slightly
different from the server's standpoint. Notice that module mod3
is actually checked out into dir3/subdir3, meaning that directory
dir3 is either empty or does not contain data checked out from
this repository.
The above example will work correctly in cvs 1.10.1 and later. The
server will descend the tree starting from all directories mentioned in
Argument requests and update those directories specifically
mentioned in Directory requests.
Previous versions of cvs (1.10 and earlier) do not behave the same
way. While the descent of the tree begins at all directories mentioned
in Argument requests, descent into subdirectories only occurs if
a directory has been mentioned in a Directory request.
Therefore, the above example would succeed in updating dir1 and
dir2, but would skip dir3 because that directory was not
specifically mentioned in a Directory request. A functional
version of the above that would run on a 1.10 or earlier server is as
follows:
C: Argument dir1
C: Directory dir1
C: /home/foo/repos/mod1
. . .
C: Argument dir2
C: Directory dir2
C: /home/foo/repos/mod2
. . .
C: Argument dir3
C: Directory dir3
C: /home/foo/repos/.
. . .
C: Directory dir3/subdir3
C: /home/foo/repos/mod3
. . .
C: update
Note the extra Directory dir3 request. It might be better to use
Emptydir as the repository for the dir3 directory, but the
above will certainly work.
One more peculiarity of the 1.10 and earlier protocol is the ordering of
Directory arguments. In order for a subdirectory to be
registered correctly for descent by the recursion processor, its parent
must be sent first. For example, the following would not work to update
dir3/subdir3:
. . .
C: Argument dir3
C: Directory dir3/subdir3
C: /home/foo/repos/mod3
. . .
C: Directory dir3
C: /home/foo/repos/.
. . .
C: update
The implementation of the server in 1.10 and earlier writes the
administration files for a given directory at the time of the
Directory request. It also tries to register the directory with
its parent to mark it for recursion. In the above example, at the time
dir3/subdir3 is created, the physical directory for dir3
will be created on disk, but the administration files will not have been
created. Therefore, when the server tries to register
dir3/subdir3 for recursion, the operation will silently fail
because the administration files do not yet exist for dir3.
Max-dotdot level \nDirectory requests are relative to will be
needed. For example, if the client is planning to use a
Directory request for ../../foo, it must send a
Max-dotdot request with a level of at least 2.
Max-dotdot must be sent before the first Directory
request.
Static-directory \nDirectory should not have
additional files checked out unless explicitly requested. The client
sends this if the Entries.Static flag is set, which is controlled
by the Set-static-directory and Clear-static-directory
responses.
Sticky tagspec \nDirectory has a sticky tag or date tagspec.
The first character of tagspec is T for a tag, D
for a date, or some other character supplied by a Set-sticky response
from a previous request to the server. The remainder of tagspec
contains the actual tag or date, again as supplied by Set-sticky.
The server should remember Static-directory and Sticky
requests for a particular directory; the client need not resend them
each time it sends a Directory request for a given directory.
However, the server is not obliged to remember them beyond the context
of a single command.
Checkin-prog program \nDirectory has a checkin program program.
Such a program would have been previously set with the
Set-checkin-prog response.
Update-prog program \nDirectory has an update program program.
Such a program would have been previously set with the
Set-update-prog response.
Entry entry-line \nDirectory. If the user
is operating on only some files in a directory, Entry requests
for only those files need be included. If an Entry request is
sent without Modified, Is-modified, or Unchanged,
it means the file is
lost (does not exist in the working directory). If both Entry
and one of Modified, Is-modified, or Unchanged are
sent for the same file, Entry must be sent first. For a
given file, one can send Modified, Is-modified, or
Unchanged, but not more than one of these three.
Kopt option \nModified or Is-modified
request (for example -kb for a binary file). This is similar to
Entry, but is used for a file for which there is no entries line.
Typically this will be a file being added via an add or
import request. The client may not send both Kopt and
Entry for the same file.
Checkin-time time \nModified request, use
time as the time of the checkin. The time is in the format
specified by RFC822 as modified by RFC1123. The client may specify any
timezone it chooses; servers will want to convert that to their own
timezone as appropriate. An example of this format is:
26 May 1997 13:01:40 -0400
There is no requirement that the client and server clocks be synchronized. The client just sends its recommendation for a timestamp (based on file timestamps or whatever), and the server should just believe it (this means that the time might be in the future, for example).
Note that this is not a general-purpose way to tell the server about the timestamp of a file; that would be a separate request (if there are servers which can maintain timestamp and time of checkin separately).
This request should affect the import request, and may optionally
affect the ci request or other relevant requests if any.
Modified filename \nDirectory; it
must not contain /. If
the user is operating on only some files in a directory, only those
files need to be included. This can also be sent without Entry,
if there is no entry for the file.
Is-modified filename \nModified,
but used if the server only needs
to know whether the file is modified, not the contents.
The commands which can take Is-modified instead of
Modified with no known change in behavior are: admin,
diff (if and only if two -r or -D options are
specified), watch-on, watch-off, watch-add,
watch-remove, watchers, editors,
log, and annotate.
For the status command, one can send Is-modified but if
the client is using imperfect mechanisms such as timestamps to determine
whether to consider a file modified, then the behavior will be
different. That is, if one sends Modified, then the server will
actually compare the contents of the file sent and the one it derives
from to determine whether the file is genuinely modified. But if one
sends Is-modified, then the server takes the client's word for
it. A similar situation exists for tag, if the -c option
is specified.
Commands for which Modified is necessary are co,
ci, update, and import.
Commands which do not need to inform the server about a working
directory, and thus should not be sending either Modified or
Is-modified: rdiff, rtag, history,
init, and release.
Commands for which further investigation is warranted are:
remove, add, and export. Pending such
investigation, the more conservative course of action is to stick to
Modified.
Unchanged filename \nDirectory; it
must not contain /.
UseUnchanged \nRoot request need not have been previously sent.
Notify filename \nedit or unedit command has taken
place. The server needs to send a Notified response, but such
response is deferred until the next time that the server is sending
responses.
The filename is a file within the most recent directory sent with
Directory; it must not contain /.
Additional data:
notification-type \t time \t clienthost \t
working-dir \t watches \n
where notification-type is E for edit, U for unedit, undefined behavior if C, and all other letters should be silently ignored for future expansion. time is the time at which the edit or unedit took place, in a user-readable format of the client's choice (the server should treat the time as an opaque string rather than interpreting it). clienthost is the name of the host on which the edit or unedit took place, and working-dir is the pathname of the working directory where the edit or unedit took place. watches are the temporary watches, zero or more of the following characters in the following order: E for edit, U for unedit, C for commit, and all other letters should be silently ignored for future expansion. If notification-type is E the temporary watches are set; if it is U they are cleared. If watches is followed by \t then the \t and the rest of the line should be ignored, for future expansion.
The time, clienthost, and working-dir fields may not contain the characters +, ,, >, ;, or =.
Note that a client may be capable of performing an edit or
unedit operation without connecting to the server at that time,
and instead connecting to the server when it is convenient (for example,
when a laptop is on the net again) to send the Notify requests.
Even if a client is capable of deferring notifications, it should
attempt to send them immediately (one can send Notify requests
together with a noop request, for example), unless perhaps if
it can know that a connection would be impossible.
Questionable filename \nM response) ? followed
by the directory and filename. filename must not contain
/; it needs to be a file in the directory named by the most
recent Directory request.
Case \nEntry and Modified requests for the
same file must match in case regardless of whether the Case
request is sent. The latter mechanism is more general (it could also be
used for 8.3 filenames, VMS filenames with more than one ., and
any other situation in which there is a predictable mapping between
filenames in the working directory and filenames in the protocol), but
there are some situations it cannot handle (ignore patterns, or
situations where the user specifies a filename and the client does not
know about that file).
Though this request will be supported into the forseeable future, it has been
the source of numerous bug reports in the past due to the complexity of testing
this functionality via the test suite and client developers are encouraged not
to use it. Instead, please consider munging conflicting names and maintaining
a map for communicating with the server. For example, suppose the server sends
files case, CASE, and CaSe. The client could write all
three files to names such as, case, case_prefix_case, and
case_prefix_2_case and maintain a mapping between the file names in, for
instance a new CVS/Map file.
Argument text \nArgumentx text \nGlobal_option option \nvalid-requests, it is probably better to
make new global options separate requests, rather than trying to add
them to this request.
The Root request need not have been previously sent.
Gzip-stream level \nKerberos-encrypt \nGzip-stream and
the Kerberos-encrypt requests are used, the
Kerberos-encrypt request should be used first. This will make
the client and server encrypt the compressed data, as opposed to
compressing the encrypted data. Encrypted data is generally
incompressible.
Note that this request does not fully prevent an attacker from hijacking
the connection, in the sense that it does not prevent hijacking the
connection between the initial authentication and the
Kerberos-encrypt request.
Gssapi-encrypt \nKerberos-encrypt, above, for
the relation between Gssapi-encrypt and Gzip-stream.
Note that this request does not fully prevent an attacker from hijacking
the connection, in the sense that it does not prevent hijacking the
connection between the initial authentication and the
Gssapi-encrypt request.
Gssapi-authenticate \nGssapi-authenticate
and Gssapi-encrypt has no effect beyond that of
Gssapi-encrypt. Unlike encrypted data, it is reasonable to
compress authenticated data.
Note that this request does not fully prevent an attacker from hijacking
the connection, in the sense that it does not prevent hijacking the
connection between the initial authentication and the
Gssapi-authenticate request.
Set variable=value \nRoot request need not have been previously sent.
expand-modules \nModule-expansion responses. Note
that the server can assume that this is checkout or export, not rtag or
rdiff; the latter do not access the working directory and thus have no
need to expand modules on the client side.
Expand may not be the best word for what this request does. It does not necessarily tell you all the files contained in a module, for example. Basically it is a way of telling you which working directories the server needs to know about in order to handle a checkout of the specified modules.
For example, suppose that the server has a module defined by
aliasmodule -a 1dir
That is, one can check out aliasmodule and it will take
1dir in the repository and check it out to 1dir in the
working directory. Now suppose the client already has this module
checked out and is planning on using the co request to update it.
Without using expand-modules, the client would have two bad
choices: it could either send information about all working
directories under the current directory, which could be unnecessarily
slow, or it could be ignorant of the fact that aliasmodule stands
for 1dir, and neglect to send information for 1dir, which
would lead to incorrect operation.
With expand-modules, the client would first ask for the module to
be expanded:
C: Root /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot
. . .
C: Argument aliasmodule
C: Directory .
C: /home/kingdon/zwork/cvsroot
C: expand-modules
S: Module-expansion 1dir
S: ok
and then it knows to check the 1dir directory and send
requests such as Entry and Modified for the files in that
directory.
ci \ndiff \ntag \nstatus \nadmin \nhistory \nwatchers \neditors \nannotate \nArgument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. The
last Directory sent specifies the working directory at the time
of the operation. No provision is made for any input from the user.
This means that ci must use a -m argument if it wants to
specify a log message.
log \nDirectory, Entry, or Modified
requests, if they have been sent. The last Directory sent
specifies the working directory at the time of the operation. Also uses
previous Argument's of which the canonical forms are the
following (cvs 1.10 and older clients sent what the user specified,
but clients are encouraged to use the canonical forms and other forms
are deprecated):
-b, -h, -l, -N, -R, -tArgument request.
-d date1<date2Argument request and the date range is a second
one.
-d date1<=date2-d singledateTo include several date ranges and/or singledates, repeat the -d
option as many times as necessary.
-rrev1:rev2-rbranch-rbranch.-rArgument request. To include several
revision selections, repeat the -r option.
-s state-w-wloginco \nArgument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. Arguments to this
command are module names; the client cannot know what directories they
correspond to except by (1) just sending the co request, and then
seeing what directory names the server sends back in its responses, and
(2) the expand-modules request.
export \nArgument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. Arguments to this
command are module names, as described for the co request. The
intention behind this command is that a client can get sources from a
server without storing CVS information about those sources. That is, a
client probably should not count on being able to take the entries line
returned in the Created response from an export request
and send it in a future Entry request. Note that the entries
line in the Created response must indicate whether the file is
binary or text, so the client can create it correctly.
rannotate \nrdiff \nrlog \nrtag \nArgument requests, if they have been sent. The client
should not send Directory, Entry, or Modified
requests for these commands; they are not used. Arguments to these
commands are module names, as described for co.
init root-name \nCVSROOT variable.
The Root request need not have been previously sent.
update \ncvs update command. This
uses any previous Argument, Directory, Entry,
or Modified requests, if they have been sent. The
last Directory sent specifies the working directory at the time
of the operation. The -I option is not used–files which the
client can decide whether to ignore are not mentioned and the client
sends the Questionable request for others.
import \ncvs import command. This
uses any previous Argument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. The
last Directory sent specifies the working directory at the time
of the operation - unlike most commands, the repository field of each
Directory request is ignored (it merely must point somewhere
within the root). The files to be imported are sent in Modified
requests (files which the client knows should be ignored are not sent;
the server must still process the CVSROOT/cvsignore file unless -I ! is
sent). A log message must have been specified with a -m
argument.
add \nArgument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. The
last Directory sent specifies the working directory at the time
of the operation.
To add a directory, send the directory to be added using
Directory and Argument requests. For example:
C: Root /u/cvsroot
. . .
C: Argument nsdir
C: Directory nsdir
C: /u/cvsroot/1dir/nsdir
C: Directory .
C: /u/cvsroot/1dir
C: add
S: M Directory /u/cvsroot/1dir/nsdir added to the repository
S: ok
You will notice that the server does not signal to the client in any
particular way that the directory has been successfully added. The
client is supposed to just assume that the directory has been added and
update its records accordingly. Note also that adding a directory is
immediate; it does not wait until a ci request as files do.
To add a file, send the file to be added using a Modified
request. For example:
C: Argument nfile
C: Directory .
C: /u/cvsroot/1dir
C: Modified nfile
C: u=rw,g=r,o=r
C: 6
C: hello
C: add
S: E cvs server: scheduling file `nfile' for addition
S: Mode u=rw,g=r,o=r
S: Checked-in ./
S: /u/cvsroot/1dir/nfile
S: /nfile/0///
S: E cvs server: use 'cvs commit' to add this file permanently
S: ok
Note that the file has not been added to the repository; the only effect
of a successful add request, for a file, is to supply the client
with a new entries line containing 0 to indicate an added file.
In fact, the client probably could perform this operation without
contacting the server, although using add does cause the server
to perform a few more checks.
The client sends a subsequent ci to actually add the file to the
repository.
Another quirk of the add request is that with CVS 1.9 and older,
a pathname specified in
an Argument request cannot contain /. There is no good
reason for this restriction, and in fact more recent CVS servers don't
have it.
But the way to interoperate with the older servers is to ensure that
all Directory requests for add (except those used to add
directories, as described above), use . for
local-directory. Specifying another string for
local-directory may not get an error, but it will get you strange
Checked-in responses from the buggy servers.
remove \nArgument, Directory, Entry, or
Modified requests, if they have been sent. The
last Directory sent specifies the working directory at the time
of the operation.
Note that this request does not actually do anything to the repository;
the only effect of a successful remove request is to supply the
client with a new entries line containing - to indicate a removed
file. In fact, the client probably could perform this operation without
contacting the server, although using remove may cause the server
to perform a few more checks.
The client sends a subsequent ci request to actually record the
removal in the repository.
watch-on \nwatch-off \nwatch-add \nwatch-remove \ncvs watch on, cvs
watch off, cvs watch add, and cvs watch remove commands,
respectively. This uses any previous Argument,
Directory, Entry, or Modified
requests, if they have been sent. The last Directory sent
specifies the working directory at the time of the operation.
release \ncvs release command has
taken place and update the history file accordingly.
noop \nNotified responses, etc.
The Root request need not have been previously sent.
update-patches \nupdate
request. The client must issue the -u argument to update
in order to receive patches.
gzip-file-contents level \nGzip-stream is suggested
instead of gzip-file-contents as it gives better compression; the
only reason to implement the latter is to provide compression with
cvs 1.8 and earlier. The gzip-file-contents request asks
the server to compress files it sends to the client using gzip
(RFC1952/1951) compression, using the specified level of compression.
If this request is not made, the server must not compress files.
This is only a hint to the server. It may still decide (for example, in the case of very small files, or files that already appear to be compressed) not to do the compression. Compression is indicated by a z preceding the file length.
Availability of this request in the server indicates to the client that
it may compress files sent to the server, regardless of whether the
client actually uses this request.
wrapper-sendme-rcsOptions \nWrapper-rcsOption responses.
version \nRoot request need not have been previously sent.
\nWhen the client is done, it drops the connection.