CI(1) General Commands Manual CI(1)
NAME
ci - check in RCS revisions
SYNOPSIS
ci [options] file ...
DESCRIPTION
ci stores new revisions into RCS files. Each file name matching an RCS suffix is taken to be an RCS file.
All others are assumed to be working files containing new revisions. ci deposits the contents of each working
file into the corresponding RCS file. If only a working file is given, ci tries to find the corresponding RCS
file in an RCS subdirectory and then in the working file's directory. For more details, see FILE NAMING
below.
For ci to work, the caller's login must be on the access list, except if the access list is empty or the call‐
er is the superuser or the owner of the file. To append a new revision to an existing branch, the tip revi‐
sion on that branch must be locked by the caller. Otherwise, only a new branch can be created. This restric‐
tion is not enforced for the owner of the file if non-strict locking is used (see rcs(1)). A lock held by
someone else can be broken with the rcs command.
Unless the -f option is given, ci checks whether the revision to be deposited differs from the preceding one.
If not, instead of creating a new revision ci reverts to the preceding one. To revert, ordinary ci removes
the working file and any lock; ci -l keeps and ci -u removes any lock, and then they both generate a new work‐
ing file much as if co -l or co -u had been applied to the preceding revision. When reverting, any -n and -s
options apply to the preceding revision.
For each revision deposited, ci prompts for a log message. The log message should summarize the change and
must be terminated by end-of-file or by a line containing . by itself. If several files are checked in ci
asks whether to reuse the previous log message. If the standard input is not a terminal, ci suppresses the
prompt and uses the same log message for all files. See also -m.
If the RCS file does not exist, ci creates it and deposits the contents of the working file as the initial
revision (default number: 1.1). The access list is initialized to empty. Instead of the log message, ci
requests descriptive text (see -t below).
The number rev of the deposited revision can be given by any of the options -f, -i, -I, -j, -k, -l, -M, -q,
-r, or -u. rev can be symbolic, numeric, or mixed. Symbolic names in rev must already be defined; see the -n
and -N options for assigning names during checkin. If rev is $, ci determines the revision number from key‐
word values in the working file.
If rev begins with a period, then the default branch (normally the trunk) is prepended to it. If rev is a
branch number followed by a period, then the latest revision on that branch is used.
If rev is a revision number, it must be higher than the latest one on the branch to which rev belongs, or must
start a new branch.
If rev is a branch rather than a revision number, the new revision is appended to that branch. The level num‐
ber is obtained by incrementing the tip revision number of that branch. If rev indicates a non-existing
branch, that branch is created with the initial revision numbered rev.1.
If rev is omitted, ci tries to derive the new revision number from the caller's last lock. If the caller has
locked the tip revision of a branch, the new revision is appended to that branch. The new revision number is
obtained by incrementing the tip revision number. If the caller locked a non-tip revision, a new branch is
started at that revision by incrementing the highest branch number at that revision. The default initial
branch and level numbers are 1.
If rev is omitted and the caller has no lock, but owns the file and locking is not set to strict, then the
-l[rev]
works like -r, except it performs an additional co -l for the deposited revision. Thus, the deposited
revision is immediately checked out again and locked. This is useful for saving a revision although
one wants to continue editing it after the checkin.
-u[rev]
works like -l, except that the deposited revision is not locked. This lets one read the working file
immediately after checkin.
The -l, bare -r, and -u options are mutually exclusive and silently override each other. For example,
ci -u -r is equivalent to ci -r because bare -r overrides -u.
-f[rev]
forces a deposit; the new revision is deposited even it is not different from the preceding one.
-k[rev]
searches the working file for keyword values to determine its revision number, creation date, state,
and author (see co(1)), and assigns these values to the deposited revision, rather than computing them
locally. It also generates a default login message noting the login of the caller and the actual
checkin date. This option is useful for software distribution. A revision that is sent to several
sites should be checked in with the -k option at these sites to preserve the original number, date,
author, and state. The extracted keyword values and the default log message can be overridden with the
options -d, -m, -s, -w, and any option that carries a revision number.
-q[rev]
quiet mode; diagnostic output is not printed. A revision that is not different from the preceding one
is not deposited, unless -f is given.
-i[rev]
initial checkin; report an error if the RCS file already exists. This avoids race conditions in cer‐
tain applications.
-j[rev]
just checkin and do not initialize; report an error if the RCS file does not already exist.
-I[rev]
interactive mode; the user is prompted and questioned even if the standard input is not a terminal.
-d[date]
uses date for the checkin date and time. The date is specified in free format as explained in co(1).
This is useful for lying about the checkin date, and for -k if no date is available. If date is empty,
the working file's time of last modification is used.
-M[rev]
Set the modification time on any new working file to be the date of the retrieved revision. For exam‐
ple, ci -d -M -u f does not alter f's modification time, even if f's contents change due to keyword
substitution. Use this option with care; it can confuse make(1).
-m[msg]
uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked in. If msg is omitted, it defaults to
"*** empty log message ***". By convention, log messages that start with # are comments and are
ignored by programs like GNU Emacs's vc package. Also, log messages that start with {clumpname} (fol‐
lowed by white space) are meant to be clumped together if possible, even if they are associated with
different files; the {clumpname} label is used only for clumping, and is not considered to be part of
-t-string
Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, deleting the existing text.
The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an initial checkin; it is silently ignored
otherwise.
During the initial checkin, if -t is not given, ci obtains the text from standard input, terminated by
end-of-file or by a line containing . by itself. The user is prompted for the text if interaction is
possible; see -I.
For backward compatibility with older versions of RCS, a bare -t option is ignored.
-T Set the RCS file's modification time to the new revision's time if the former precedes the latter and
there is a new revision; preserve the RCS file's modification time otherwise. If you have locked a
revision, ci usually updates the RCS file's modification time to the current time, because the lock is
stored in the RCS file and removing the lock requires changing the RCS file. This can create an RCS
file newer than the working file in one of two ways: first, ci -M can create a working file with a date
before the current time; second, when reverting to the previous revision the RCS file can change while
the working file remains unchanged. These two cases can cause excessive recompilation caused by a
make(1) dependency of the working file on the RCS file. The -T option inhibits this recompilation by
lying about the RCS file's date. Use this option with care; it can suppress recompilation even when a
checkin of one working file should affect another working file associated with the same RCS file. For
example, suppose the RCS file's time is 01:00, the (changed) working file's time is 02:00, some other
copy of the working file has a time of 03:00, and the current time is 04:00. Then ci -d -T sets the
RCS file's time to 02:00 instead of the usual 04:00; this causes make(1) to think (incorrectly) that
the other copy is newer than the RCS file.
-wlogin
uses login for the author field of the deposited revision. Useful for lying about the author, and for
-k if no author is available.
-V Print RCS's version number.
-Vn Emulate RCS version n. See co(1) for details.
-xsuffixes
specifies the suffixes for RCS files. A nonempty suffix matches any file name ending in the suffix.
An empty suffix matches any file name of the form RCS/frag or frag1/RCS/frag2. The -x option can spec‐
ify a list of suffixes separated by /. For example, -x,v/ specifies two suffixes: ,v and the empty
suffix. If two or more suffixes are specified, they are tried in order when looking for an RCS file;
the first one that works is used for that file. If no RCS file is found but an RCS file can be cre‐
ated, the suffixes are tried in order to determine the new RCS file's name. The default for suffixes
is installation-dependent; normally it is ,v/ for hosts like Unix that permit commas in file names, and
is empty (i.e. just the empty suffix) for other hosts.
-zzone specifies the date output format in keyword substitution, and specifies the default time zone for date
in the -ddate option. The zone should be empty, a numeric UTC offset, or the special string LT for
local time. The default is an empty zone, which uses the traditional RCS format of UTC without any
time zone indication and with slashes separating the parts of the date; otherwise, times are output in
ISO 8601 format with time zone indication. For example, if local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm Pacific
Standard Time, eight hours west of UTC, then the time is output as follows:
option time output
contain /RCS/.
2) Only the RCS file is given. Then the working file is created in the current directory and its name is
derived from the RCS file name by removing frag1/ and the suffix X.
3) Only the working file is given. Then ci considers each RCS suffix X in turn, looking for an RCS file of
the form frag2/RCS/workfileX or (if the former is not found and X is nonempty) frag2/workfileX.
If the RCS file is specified without a file name in 1) and 2), ci looks for the RCS file first in the direc‐
tory ./RCS and then in the current directory.
ci reports an error if an attempt to open an RCS file fails for an unusual reason, even if the RCS file's name
is just one of several possibilities. For example, to suppress use of RCS commands in a directory d, create a
regular file named d/RCS so that casual attempts to use RCS commands in d fail because d/RCS is not a direc‐
tory.
EXAMPLES
Suppose ,v is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdirectory RCS with an RCS file io.c,v.
Then each of the following commands check in a copy of io.c into RCS/io.c,v as the latest revision, removing
io.c.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c,v;
ci io.c RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c io.c,v;
ci RCS/io.c,v io.c; ci io.c,v io.c;
Suppose instead that the empty suffix is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdirectory RCS
with an RCS file io.c. The each of the following commands checks in a new revision.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c;
ci io.c RCS/io.c;
ci RCS/io.c io.c;
FILE MODES
An RCS file created by ci inherits the read and execute permissions from the working file. If the RCS file
exists already, ci preserves its read and execute permissions. ci always turns off all write permissions of
RCS files.
FILES
Temporary files are created in the directory containing the working file, and also in the temporary directory
(see TMPDIR under ENVIRONMENT). A semaphore file or files are created in the directory containing the RCS
file. With a nonempty suffix, the semaphore names begin with the first character of the suffix; therefore, do
not specify an suffix whose first character could be that of a working file name. With an empty suffix, the
semaphore names end with _ so working file names should not end in _.
ci never changes an RCS file or working file. Normally, ci unlinks the file and creates a new one; but
instead of breaking a chain of one or more symbolic links to an RCS file, it unlinks the destination file
instead. Therefore, ci breaks any hard or symbolic links to any working file it changes; and hard links to
RCS files are ineffective, but symbolic links to RCS files are preserved.
The effective user must be able to search and write the directory containing the RCS file. Normally, the real
user must be able to read the RCS and working files and to search and write the directory containing the work‐
ing file; however, some older hosts cannot easily switch between real and effective users, so on these hosts
the effective user is used for all accesses. The effective user is the same as the real user unless your
copies of ci and co have setuid privileges. As described in the next section, these privileges yield extra
To prevent anybody but their RCS administrator from deleting revisions, a set of users can employ setuid priv‐
ileges as follows.
· Check that the host supports RCS setuid use. Consult a trustworthy expert if there are any doubts. It is
best if the seteuid system call works as described in Posix 1003.1a Draft 5, because RCS can switch back and
forth easily between real and effective users, even if the real user is root. If not, the second best is if
the setuid system call supports saved setuid (the {_POSIX_SAVED_IDS} behavior of Posix 1003.1-1990); this
fails only if the real or effective user is root. If RCS detects any failure in setuid, it quits immedi‐
ately.
· Choose a user A to serve as RCS administrator for the set of users. Only A can invoke the rcs command on
the users' RCS files. A should not be root or any other user with special powers. Mutually suspicious sets
of users should use different administrators.
· Choose a file name B to be a directory of files to be executed by the users.
· Have A set up B to contain copies of ci and co that are setuid to A by copying the commands from their stan‐
dard installation directory D as follows:
mkdir B
cp D/c[io] B
chmod go-w,u+s B/c[io]
· Have each user prepend B to their command search path as follows:
PATH=B:$PATH; export PATH # ordinary shell
set path=(B $path) # C shell
· Have A create each RCS directory R with write access only to A as follows:
mkdir R
chmod go-w R
· If you want to let only certain users read the RCS files, put the users into a group G, and have A further
protect the RCS directory as follows:
chgrp G R
chmod g-w,o-rwx R
· Have A copy old RCS files (if any) into R, to ensure that A owns them.
· An RCS file's access list limits who can check in and lock revisions. The default access list is empty,
which grants checkin access to anyone who can read the RCS file. If you want limit checkin access, have A
invoke rcs -a on the file; see rcs(1). In particular, rcs -e -aA limits access to just A.
· Have A initialize any new RCS files with rcs -i before initial checkin, adding the -a option if you want to
limit checkin access.
· Give setuid privileges only to ci, co, and rcsclean; do not give them to rcs or to any other command.
· Do not use other setuid commands to invoke RCS commands; setuid is trickier than you think!
ENVIRONMENT
RCSINIT
DIAGNOSTICS
For each revision, ci prints the RCS file, the working file, and the number of both the deposited and the pre‐
ceding revision. The exit status is zero if and only if all operations were successful.
IDENTIFICATION
Author: Walter F. Tichy.
Manual Page Revision: 5.9.0; Release Date: 2014-06-10.
Copyright © 2010-2013 Thien-Thi Nguyen.
Copyright © 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.
Copyright © 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
SEE ALSO
co(1), emacs(1), ident(1), make(1), rcs(1), rcsclean(1), rcsdiff(1), rcsmerge(1), rlog(1), setuid(2), rcs‐
file(5).
Walter F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control, Software--Practice & Experience 15, 7 (July 1985),
637-654.
The full documentation for RCS is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info(1) and RCS programs are prop‐
erly installed at your site, the command
info rcs
should give you access to the complete manual. Additionally, the RCS homepage:
http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/
has news and links to the latest release, development site, etc.
GNU RCS 5.9.0 2014-06-10 CI(1)
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