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CVS Intro Assignment

This assignment is designed simply to make sure you can use the most basic functionality of CVS, which is obtaining code and applying your changes. There are many more features of CVS that you'll want to use, but this is a start.

Step 1: Register at SourceForge

Sourceforge.net is an open source hosting service. Because our project is open source, they are giving us a web server, CVS server, mailing lists, forums, bug tracking, documentation hosting, support system, and file release system. For free.

Here's the easy part of the assignment. Before you can do anything you need your Sourceforge account added to the project. If you don't have a Sourceforge account, register at Sourceforge.net. E-mail your Sourceforge username to beanalby@users.sourceforge.net. I'll add your username to the project as soon as I can. You can check if you're added to the project on the CWRUser developer member list. If you're waiting to be added, feel free to go over the next section, Quick & Dirty Intro to CVS. You can start setting up your CVS client (uploading your public key, etc), but you will not be able to actually interact with the CVS server until you're added to the project.

Step 2: Read the Quick & Dirty CVS intro

This document provides an overview of what CVS is, and covers the checkout and commit commands. If you're already familiar with that, then you can skip it.

Step 3: Setting up a CVS client

This will probably be the hardest part of the assignment. There are four options for your CVS setup:

Windows with a command line interface (Recommended)
I reccomend this setup because a) it's what I use, so I'm most familiar with it and therefore better able to answer questions about it, and b) it's simple to use.
Windows with a GUI client (WinCVS) [Sourceforge Doc]
Although I've never used WinCVS, Sourceforge provides a painfully detailed guide to setting it up.
Unix/Linux [Sourceforge Doc]
mmm...Unix. There's really not much setting up to do - if youre unix machine already has ssh and cvs installed, all you have to do is set CVSROOT and CVS_RSH. Please don't do the "import project" stuff in the document.
Mac [Sourceforge Doc]
I have very limited experience with MacCVS Pro, the reccomended Mac CVS client, and I've never tried using SSH authentication (which Sourceforge uses). Sourceforge recently put up this document on how to do it, though. You're welcomed to try if you want.

Please use one of these methods to set up your CVS client. If you're having trouble with any of the CVS setups, first check the CWRUser SourceForge FAQ. If your question isn't answered there, then look in the Sourceforge Help Forums. If you're having a problem, there's a 99% chance that someone else has already had that problem and there's an answer to it in the forums.

If you can't find anything there, then post a question in CWRUser's Sourceforge Help forum. Someone in the class should be able to help you out. This way others will be able to see it in case they have the same problem.

Step 4: Use CVS

Once you have CVS setup correctly, the assignment is:

Check out the module "test"
Make some sort of change to either readme.txt and/or test.c
Commit those changes. Make sure you remember to define the log entry (-m switch).

What kind of changes should you make to the file? Who cares. Something. Anything. I'd like to see someone start a story, and every person add on to it. That could get quite amusing. :) Please note that all changes are logged, so we know exactly who did what. So if someone writes the story "Die Podgurski Die", they will be tracked down and sacked.

There's no need to "submit" anything. We can simply look in the CVS logs (just as you can) and see who did what.

If you have any questions regarding this assignment at all, please make a post in the CWRUser Sourceforge Help Forum.