Tolkin, Steve writes:
>
> I think that CVS is still using the same file format used by RCS,
> even though it no longer uses the RCS executables to do its work.
Correct.
> I also think that the RCS file should always follow the Unix
> convention for a newline, i.e. use the single character \n, even
> on DOS and Windows systems.
Yes and no: whitespace (including \r) is ignored outside of strings, so
the infrastructure of the RCS file can have \r, \n, both, or neither as
desired. The actual content of the file is contained in one or more
deltatext strings that follow the C library convention: lines in text
files are separated by \n, binary files are arbitrary collections of
bytes.
> In contrast the work file should always use the "native" newline
> convention, i.e. \r\n on DOS and Windows.
A text file in a working directory should follow the native newline
convention; a binary file should contain exactly the same sequence of
bytes as in the RCS file.
> Are these statements true? Is this documented anywhere?
Not in one place, unfortunately. doc/RSCFILES is a good starting place;
the rcsfile man page and the C library documentation also contain
relevant pieces of information.
-Larry Jones
What this games needs are negotiated settlements. -- Calvin
