1.3.2 Committing your changes
When you have checked that the compiler is still compilable you decide
to make a new version of `backend.c'. This will
store your new `backend.c' in the repository and
make it available to anyone else who is using that same
repository.
CVS starts an editor, to allow you to enter a log
message. You type in “Added an optimization pass.”,
save the temporary file, and exit the editor.
The environment variable $CVSEDITOR determines
which editor is started. If $CVSEDITOR is not
set, then if the environment variable $EDITOR is
set, it will be used. If both $CVSEDITOR and
$EDITOR are not set then there is a default
which will vary with your operating system, for example
vi for unix or notepad for Windows
NT/95.
In addition, CVS checks the $VISUAL environment
variable. Opinions vary on whether this behavior is desirable and
whether future releases of CVS should check $VISUAL or
ignore it. You will be OK either way if you make sure that
$VISUAL is either unset or set to the same thing as
$EDITOR.
When CVS starts the editor, it includes a list of
files which are modified. For the CVS client,
this list is based on comparing the modification time
of the file against the modification time that the file
had when it was last gotten or updated. Therefore, if
a file's modification time has changed but its contents
have not, it will show up as modified. The simplest
way to handle this is simply not to worry about it—if
you proceed with the commit CVS will detect that
the contents are not modified and treat it as an
unmodified file. The next update will clue
CVS in to the fact that the file is unmodified,
and it will reset its stored timestamp so that the file
will not show up in future editor sessions.
If you want to avoid
starting an editor you can specify the log message on
the command line using the `-m' flag instead, like
this:
| | $ cvs commit -m "Added an optimization pass" backend.c
|
