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 pathname matching an RCS
       suffix is taken to be an RCS file.  All others are assumed to be	 work-
       ing  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 subdi-
       rectory 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 caller is the superuser or the owner
       of  the	file.  To append a new revision to an existing branch, the tip
       revision on that branch must be locked by the caller.  Otherwise,  only
       a  new branch can be created.  This restriction 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 working 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  sym-
       bolic,  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 keyword 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 number is obtained by  incrementing
       the  tip revision number of that branch.	 If rev indicates a non-exist-
       ing 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 revi-
       sion 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  revision	 is  appended  to  the
       default branch (normally the trunk; see the -b option of rcs(1)).

       Exception:  On the trunk, revisions can be appended to the end, but not
       inserted.

OPTIONS
       -rrev  Check in revision rev.

       -r     The bare -r option (without any revision) has an unusual meaning
	      in  ci.  With other RCS commands, a bare -r option specifies the
	      most recent revision on the default branch, but with ci, a  bare
	      -r option reestablishes the default behavior of releasing a lock
	      and removing the working file,  and  is  used  to	 override  any
	      default  -l  or  -u  options  established	 by  shell  aliases or
	      scripts.

       -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 revi-
	      sion  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  equiva-
	      lent 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 mes-
	      sage 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 certain 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 example, 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).

       -mmsg  uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked
	      in.  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}  (followed  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
	      the log message itself.

       -nname assigns the symbolic name name to the number of  the  checked-in
	      revision.	  ci  prints  an  error	 message  if  name  is already
	      assigned to another number.

       -Nname same as -n, except that it overrides a  previous	assignment  of
	      name.

       -sstate
	      sets  the	 state	of  the	 checked-in revision to the identifier
	      state.  The default state is Exp.

       -tfile writes descriptive text from the contents of the named file into
	      the RCS file, deleting the existing text.	 The file cannot begin
	      with -.

       -t-string
	      Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, delet-
	      ing the existing text.

	      The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an ini-
	      tial 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 modi-
	      fication 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 recompi-
	      lation 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.  Use-
	      ful 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 pathname ending in the suffix.  An empty suffix matches  any
	      pathname of the form RCS/path or path1/RCS/path2.	 The -x option
	      can specify 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-depen-
	      dent;  normally it is ,v/ for hosts like Unix that permit commas
	      in filenames, 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
		     -z	       1990/01/12 04:00:00	  (default)
		     -zLT      1990-01-11 20:00:00-08
		     -z+05:30  1990-01-12 09:30:00+05:30

	      The -z option does not affect dates stored in RCS	 files,	 which
	      are always UTC.

FILE NAMING
       Pairs  of  RCS  files  and working files can be specified in three ways
       (see also the example section).

       1) Both the RCS file and the working file are given.  The RCS  pathname
       is  of the form path1/workfileX and the working pathname is of the form
       path2/workfile where path1/  and	 path2/	 are  (possibly	 different  or
       empty)  paths, workfile is a filename, and X is an RCS suffix.  If X is
       empty, path1/ must start with RCS/ or must 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 name of the RCS file
       by removing path1/ 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 path2/RCS/workfileX or (if
       the former is not found and X is nonempty) path2/workfileX.

       If the RCS file is specified without a path in 1) and 2), ci looks  for
       the  RCS	 file  first  in  the  directory ./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 pathname 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 directory.

EXAMPLES
       Suppose ,v is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdi-
       rectory	RCS  with an RCS file io.c,v.  Then each of the following com-
       mands 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 per-
       missions of RCS files.

FILES
       Temporary files are created in the  directory  containing  the  working
       file,  and  also	 in the temporary directory (see TMPDIR under ENVIRON-
       MENT).  A semaphore file or files are created in the directory contain-
       ing  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 filename.  With
       an empty suffix, the semaphore names end with _	so  working  filenames
       should not end in _.

       ci never changes an RCS 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  con-
       taining 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  working  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 security if
       the effective user owns all RCS files and directories, and if only  the
       effective user can write RCS directories.

       Users can control access to RCS files by setting the permissions of the
       directory containing the files; only users with	write  access  to  the
       directory  can  use RCS commands to change its RCS files.  For example,
       in hosts that allow a user to belong to several groups, one can make  a
       group's	RCS  directories  writable  to that group only.	 This approach
       suffices for informal projects, but it means that any group member  can
       arbitrarily  change  the	 group's  RCS  files, and can even remove them
       entirely.  Hence more formal projects sometimes distinguish between  an
       RCS  administrator,  who	 can  change  the RCS files at will, and other
       project members, who can check in new revisions	but  cannot  otherwise
       change the RCS files.

SETUID USE
       To prevent anybody but their RCS administrator from deleting revisions,
       a set of users can employ setuid privileges as follows.

       o 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 immediately.

       o 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 suspi-
	 cious sets of users should use different administrators.

       o Choose a pathname B to be a directory of files to be executed by  the
	 users.

       o Have  A  set up B to contain copies of ci and co that are setuid to A
	 by copying the commands from their standard installation directory  D
	 as follows:

	      mkdir  B
	      cp  D/c[io]  B
	      chmod  go-w,u+s  B/c[io]

       o Have each user prepend B to their path as follows:

	      PATH=B:$PATH;  export  PATH  # ordinary shell
	      set  path=(B  $path)  # C shell

       o Have  A  create  each	RCS directory R with write access only to A as
	 follows:

	      mkdir  R
	      chmod  go-w  R

       o 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

       o Have A copy old RCS files (if any) into R,  to	 ensure	 that  A  owns
	 them.

       o 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 any-
	 one  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.

       o Have  A  initialize  any  new	RCS  files  with rcs -i before initial
	 checkin, adding the -a option if you want to limit checkin access.

       o Give setuid privileges only to ci, co, and rcsclean; do not give them
	 to rcs or to any other command.

       o Do  not  use  other setuid commands to invoke RCS commands; setuid is
	 trickier than you think!

ENVIRONMENT
       RCSINIT
	      options prepended to the argument list, separated by spaces.   A
	      backslash	 escapes spaces within an option.  The RCSINIT options
	      are prepended to the argument lists of most RCS commands.	  Use-
	      ful RCSINIT options include -q, -V, -x, and -z.

       TMPDIR Name  of	the  temporary directory.  If not set, the environment
	      variables TMP and TEMP are inspected instead and the first value
	      found  is	 taken;	 if  none  of  them  are set, a host-dependent
	      default is used, typically /tmp.

DIAGNOSTICS
       For each revision, ci prints the RCS file, the working  file,  and  the
       number of both the deposited and the preceding revision.	 The exit sta-
       tus is zero if and only if all operations were successful.

IDENTIFICATION
       Author: Walter F. Tichy.
       Manual Page Revision: 5.17; Release Date: 1995/06/16.
       Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
       Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.

SEE ALSO
       co(1), emacs(1), ident(1), make(1),  rcs(1),  rcsclean(1),  rcsdiff(1),
       rcsintro(1), rcsmerge(1), rlog(1), setuid(2), rcsfile(5)
       Walter  F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control, Software--Practice
       & Experience 15, 7 (July 1985), 637-654.



GNU				  1995/06/16				 CI(1)