Re: RCS revert to previous version

["Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>" <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu>]

>>> If I am working on, say 1.7 of a document using RCS, what is the
>>> easiest way to revert to a specific version, say 1.4 as an example?
>> 
>> What do you mean by "revert" ?
>> In your example, when you say you want to revert to 1.6, which
>> of the following options do you mean:
>> - you simply want the content of the file to be the same as the
>> one in version 1.6 (and it will be committed as 1.9 if you ever
>> commit it, at which point 1.6 and 1.9 would be the same)
>> - you really want to get back to the time when 1.6 was the latest
>> and simply discard 1.7 and 1.8 (i.e. after reverting to 1.6,
>> modifying the file and committing it, it'd be committed as 1.7).
>> - you want to go back to the time of 1.6 but without discarding
>> 1.7 and 1.8, such that after modifying the file, it will be
>> committed as 1.6.1.1 (i.e. first version on a new branch named
>> 1.6.1). 
>> - yet something else.

> I want to "revert" as in "go back" to a previous version. Discarding all 
> changes in between. I don't care what the new revision number is when I 
> check the document back in. I care about the content. Most of your other 
> scenarios don't match any meaning of the word "revert" that I am aware of, 
> but hopefully this makes it clearer. I want to be able to say "oops, this 
> is all wrong, let's go back three versions and begin again."

All three scenarios are the same as far as the file's content is concerned.
The difference is in the history information kept in the RCS file itself.


        Stefan