RCS and Emacs, between machines.

RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Phillip Lord]

I have a problem with RCS, within emacs. 

For some kinds of work, like writing papers, I would like to use
versioning to, well, store versions. But I tend to write a reasonable
amount at home, as well as at work. I do this by sticking all the
files onto a floppy and taking them home. I'd like to do this with the
versioning files as well. 

So RCS seemed like the obvious choice. It keeps its version files in
the same directory (or a sub-directory) so all the files would be
there on the floppy. 

However this fails, because of RCS's locking model. I have a different
user name at home, than I do at work. So I get lots of warning about
stealing locks. I don't care about locking as I am the only user
around. All I want to do is periodically check in and add version
comments, and of course be able to retrieve these versions at a
later date. 

I thought about using CVS instead, which would solve this
problem. However there you need two subdirectories...one called "CVS"
which cvs creates. And another to hold the repository (connecting to a
remote repository is really not an option). Also importing files into
the repository is a bit of a faf, as you can't do it in place...you
have to import some files, then check out a work copy, etc etc. This
is a pity because I am deeply addicted to pcl-cvs, which is excellent.

I guess that the end solution is, for each paper, create a new
directory. Then create a repository in it with one module (and no
files). Then check this empty module into the same directory as the
repository, and work from there. Which all seems like a lot of
effort. It also fails because CVS uses full qualified paths in its
Repository file, which, of course, includes my login name.

Hmmm. All a bit of a mess really. 

Anyone else do similar things? Anyone got a good solution?

Cheers

Phil

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Holger Sparr]

On 27 Sep 2002, Phillip Lord wrote:
> I have a problem with RCS, within emacs. 
> 
> For some kinds of work, like writing papers, I would like to use
> versioning to, well, store versions. But I tend to write a reasonable
> amount at home, as well as at work. I do this by sticking all the
> files onto a floppy and taking them home. I'd like to do this with the
> versioning files as well. 
> 
> So RCS seemed like the obvious choice. It keeps its version files in
> the same directory (or a sub-directory) so all the files would be
> there on the floppy. 
> 
> However this fails, because of RCS's locking model. I have a different
> user name at home, than I do at work. So I get lots of warning about
> stealing locks. I don't care about locking as I am the only user
> around. All I want to do is periodically check in and add version
> comments, and of course be able to retrieve these versions at a
> later date. 

[...]

> Hmmm. All a bit of a mess really. 
> 
> Anyone else do similar things? Anyone got a good solution?

How about sticking with RCS?  Look into the man pages of rcs. The '-a'
flag helped me when I had the same problem.


Holger

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "Holger" == Holger Sparr <sparr+usenet@mfkrs1.mw.tu-dresden.de> writes:

  Holger> On 27 Sep 2002, Phillip Lord wrote:
  >> I have a problem with RCS, within emacs.
  >>
  >> For some kinds of work, like writing papers, I would like to use
  >> versioning to, well, store versions. But I tend to write a
  >> reasonable amount at home, as well as at work. I do this by
  >> sticking all the files onto a floppy and taking them home. I'd
  >> like to do this with the versioning files as well.
  >>
  >> Anyone else do similar things? Anyone got a good solution?

  Holger> How about sticking with RCS?  Look into the man pages of
  Holger> rcs. The '-a' flag helped me when I had the same problem.


This is certainly a reasonable solution. The only problem with it, is
that, as far as I can tell, you have to check the files in before you
move them between machines, which might be an artificial boundary in
the work. I tend not to version papers, and other human readable files
that often, and with source, I like to only check in when something
has been completed. 

Still it's a possibility that I will consider.

Cheers

Phil

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Alan Shutko]

Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

> However this fails, because of RCS's locking model. I have a different
> user name at home, than I do at work.

Why don't you just change your home username to match your work
username?  That would seem to be the easiest solution.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
"Fundamentalism": The last refuge of the criminally inane.

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

  Alan> Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

  >> However this fails, because of RCS's locking model. I have a
  >> different user name at home, than I do at work.

  Alan> Why don't you just change your home username to match your
  Alan> work username?  That would seem to be the easiest solution.


It's a lot of work. It means moving ownership of a large number of
directories, and parts of my laptop file system. This seems like a lot
of effort to go to when reconfiguring RCS might be the way.

Cheers

Phil

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Alan Shutko]

Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

> It's a lot of work. It means moving ownership of a large number of
> directories, and parts of my laptop file system. 

If you're using a Unix-like OS, it just means editing /etc/passwd to
change the name while leaving the user id the same.  You can even
leave the home directory under the old name.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
Building contractors DO IT with major erections.

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

  Alan> Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

  >> It's a lot of work. It means moving ownership of a large number
  >> of directories, and parts of my laptop file system.

  Alan> If you're using a Unix-like OS, it just means editing
  Alan> /etc/passwd to change the name while leaving the user id the
  Alan> same.  You can even leave the home directory under the old
  Alan> name.

I hadn't thought of that as it happens. I was thinking of doing lots
of chowns every where, and also remapping symlinks. Change /etc/passwd
would be a hell of a lot simpler. 

I shall consider this. 

Cheers

Phil

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Lee Sau Dan]

>>>>> "Phillip" == Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

    Alan> If you're using a Unix-like OS, it just means editing
    Alan> /etc/passwd to change the name while leaving the user id the
    Alan> same.  You can even leave the home directory under the old
    Alan> name.

    Phillip> I hadn't thought of that as it happens. I was thinking of
    Phillip> doing lots of chowns every where, and also remapping
    Phillip> symlinks. 

Wouldn't  the 'find'  command,  in conjunction  with  its '-user'  and
'-exec' switches, be very helpful here?


-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     李守敦(Big5)                    ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ) 

E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

Re: RCS and Emacs, between machines.

[Kai Großjohann]

Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

> Anyone else do similar things? [work on files with version control
> in more than one location] Anyone got a good solution?

I use CVS and ssh to connect to the repository.  But it seems you
don't have an internet connection from home, so this is not a good
choice.

But maybe your problem is that while working at home you'd like to
store several versions?  That can be done with the new, nifty,
changing backends feature of VC.  When working on a file in a CVS
working directory, you can do C-x v b to switch to the RCS backend.
Then you can store several versions at home.

But when you switch back to CVS as the backend, there is no easy way
to upload all those RCS revisions in one go.  When you do a CVS
checkin, just the most recent version is uploaded so that the CVS
repository doesn't know about the intermediate versions.

Another possibility is to make sure that the RCS files are always
unlocked, by doing "ci -u" on them before putting them on the floppy.

Yet _another_ possibility is to store the CVS repository on the
floppy, too.

And then, you can do "rcs -U" on the files; maybe that helps.

kai
-- 
~/.signature is: umop ap!sdn    (Frank Nobis)