CVS Co-operative Mode

This page tells you about using CVS in Co-operative Mode. It assumes that you are familiar with CVS through having read What is CVS? and the Development Process Overview.

With the co-operative method of working, the files on your machine are read-only and you will not be able to change them until you have used the cvs edit command as described below.

Making Changes [Developer]

Note: Before making any changes to a file, make sure you have allocated the task to yourself in PTS

1. Type cvs update
   to ensure that your local copy of the repository is up to date.
2. Type cvs editors filename
   to find out if someone else is editing a file. If so you will need to negotiate with them, or with whoever is co-ordinating the editing activity before proceeding.
3. Type cvs edit filename
   to indicate that you are going to edit a file. This makes the file read/write and informs other users that you are going to edit it. If someone else starts to edit the file (they shouldn't) you will be notified by email.
4. Look in the UKGEN-FreeBMD folder for the file you want to work on and make the necessary changes.

Note: Use a plain text editor for editing HTML files, as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor can mess up the code. View HTML files in both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator if possible before upload.

5. Type cvs update filename in case the file has been changed in the meantime.


6. If you decide to abandon the changes you have made, and revert to the orignal version, type cvs unedit filename
   You will not be able to edit the file again until you have done a cvs edit file

Committing the Changes

1. Type cvs commit filename to make your changes into the repository. CVS creates the next revision number of the file. You will not be able to edit the file again until you have done a cvs edit filename
2. CVS goes quiet for a moment while it compares the list of files on your computer with those on the server, and then it automatically opens up Notepad showing a list of changed files.
3. At the top of Notepad you will see the cursor. Type in a short comment here to describe the changes to the file(s). Click on File - Save and close Notepad
4. When Notepad closes, CVS automatically sends your edited files to the server. At the same time, an e-mail is generated and sent to everyone on the mailing list telling them what has been changed.

Note: There is an alternative to using Notepad when committing in step one. Replace the command shown with cvs commit -m "message" filename where message is the description you would have typed into Notepad.

Testing the Changes

1. Log on to the Development server . You will see a list of files, including the file you have changed, preceded by a letter 'u' to indicate the file has been uploaded.
2. Test HTML and CGI changes on the Test site. The test site looks and acts like the FreeBMD site. You can navigate through the site and test how your changes look and behave.
3. Once you are happy with your testing, go to PTS and change the task status in PTS to "Ready for Test" and assign it to the person who originally requested it.

Tip Put the development server, the test site and PTS login into your 'Favourites' folder. You can then move easily from one to the other .

Requesting Transfer to Production [Developer]

1. When the requester is satisfied with the changes, you will receive an e-mail notification that the task has been assigned back to you as "Tested OK"
2. You now have to 'tag' the changed file. Make sure you're in the folder/directory which holds the file. Tag each changed file by typing cvs tag T1234 filename
• Replace T1234 with the TID from PTS preceded by T 
• Replace filename with the name of the file. 
3. Add a followup to the task in PTS, listing which modules have been changed, list any restrictions about when the module must go live (e.g. "To go live after next DB update") and assign it to Dave Mayall in status "Ready to Deploy".
4. The process is complete when Dave puts the changes live.

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