prcsstatus(1)

NAME

prcsstatus - What's in my tree?

SYNOPSIS

prcsstatus [ -w ] [ -P ]

OPTIONS

-w append unknown files to .ignore in each directory

-P don't consider project control files

DESCRIPTION

prcsstatus walks from the current directory upwards stop

ping when it finds one or more files which end in .prj (PRCS

project control files). This directory is known as the project

root.

For each of the .prj files in the project root, it gathers

a list of the files in that project, warning if a file is present

in more than one project. It then gets PRCS to generate 3 sets

of diffs: working vs common, selected vs common, and selected vs

working. It stashes the results of these diffs for later use.

prcsstatus then walks down the directory tree from the

point where it was initially started, printing a one-line summary

of the state each interesting file is in. A file is interesting

if it has been changed somewhere, either in your tree or in the

PRCS repository.

The possible states a file might be in are as follows:

? : unknown

A file is unknown if it is not mentioned in any

project in the project root. These files might be newly create

source files which should be prcs populate-ed or might simply be

junk files. You can list files to be ignored by listing them in

a .ignore file in the same directory. These .ignore files can be

automatically generated by invoking prcsstatus with the -w flag;

this is useful immediately after the first compile when all the

generated files have been created but no changes have yet been

made.

M : modified

A file is modified if you've edited the copy local

ly, and no-one else has checked a newer version into the reposi

tory.

U : updated version in repository

A file needs updating if someone has checked in a

new version to the repository, and you haven't edited your copy.

A straightforward prcs merge should fix this.

3 : 3-way conflict

A file has a 3-way conflict if it has been edited

locally, and the local copy is no longer the latest, and the

originally checked out version is not the latest. This is quite

a complex condition, and it can arise in one of three ways:

same as M:

you've done a merge, then subsequently edit

ed the file; or

same as U:

you've done a merge, then someone else

checked in; or

real conflict:

you've done a merge, edited the file, then

someone else has checked in.

Unfortunately, prcsstatus is unable to tell these three

cases apart: they all look alike. This is the major weakness of

prcsstatus. The real problem is that PRCS makes it hard to to

tell the result of a merge apart from your own edits: both look

like the file has been edited locally.

O : only in ...

One of the 3 diffs said the file only existed in

one of the versions. This could be because the file has been

deleted in the repository, or because this is a new file that has

been prcs populate-ed but not yet committed. Again, this is an

area in which prcsstatus could be improved to detect which of

these distinct scenarios is actually the case.

HISTORICAL NOTE

I wrote the prcsstatus tool because I'd used cvs

<URL:http://www.sourcegear.com/CVS> before and liked the way I

could type

cvs -n update

to get a concise listing of what I'd changed in my working

tree.

Then we started using PRCS <URL:http://prcs.source

forge.net/> at work, and I found it impossible to work out what

was in my tree.

Furthermore, the way we use PRCS is to have multiple

projects checked out on top of each other, such that each file in

the working tree is ``owned'' by one PRCS project. Dealing with

this was the final straw that broke the camel's back: I needed

something to tell me the status of each file in my tree, and

which PRCS project was responsible for it. Thus was born prc

sstatus.

BUG REPORTS

Please mail bug reports, etc, to Austin Donnelly

<Austin_Donnelly@yahoo.co.uk>. Patches to fix bugs or add fea

tures most welcome!

AUTHORS

Austin Donnelly <Austin_Donnelly@yahoo.co.uk>

This manual page was translated to DocBook by Rafael

Laboissiere <rafael@debian.org>.

11 May 2006

PRCSSTATUS(1)