Revision control system tutorial

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Introduction

This short user tutorial should help you to understand how to download software from various revision control systems.

Revision control system (RCS) or Version control system (VCS) or Source code management (SCM) stands for systems that allow software developers to

Purpose of source control


Sometimes we call it "version control". Sometimes we call it "SCM", which stands for either "software configuration management" or "source code management". Sometimes we call it "source control". [...] By any of these names, source control is an important practice for any software development team. The most basic element in software development is our source code. A source control tool offers a system for managing this source code.

There are many source control tools, and they are all different. However, regardless of which tool you use, it is likely that your source control tool provides some or all of the following basic features:

  • It provides a place to store your source code.
  • It provides a historical record of what you have done over time.
  • It can provide a way for developers to work on separate tasks in parallel, merging their efforts later.
  • It can provide a way for developers to work together without getting in each others' way.
Source Control HOWTO, retrieved 17:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

“Revision control (also known as version control (system) (VCS), source control or (source) code management (SCM)) is the management of multiple revisions of the same unit of information. It is most commonly used in engineering and software development to manage ongoing development of digital documents like application source code, art resources such as blueprints or electronic models, and other projects that may be worked on by a team of people. Changes to these documents are usually identified by incrementing an associated number or letter code, termed the "revision number", "revision level", or simply "revision" and associated historically with the person making the change. A simple form of revision control, for example, has the initial issue of a drawing assigned the revision number "1". When the first change is made, the revision number is incremented to "2" and so on. - (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC))”

Popular open source systems
  • CVS. There exist several variants of this software. It was once upon a time the most popular system and therefore still being used.
  • Subversion. Subversion was designed as a CVS replacement and is todays (2008) most popular system in the open source community.

Installing a client

In order to use a RCS, you need to install some software on your computer. There exist several sorts of programs:

  • Command line tools (I find them most practical for just checking out something)
  • Extensions for IDEs and text editors
  • Stand-alone GUI programs.
    • Tortoise SVN is the most popular Windows client. It is integrated with the file explorer.
    • An other good standalone Subversion client is eSvn

CVS command-line client

The programm is called cvs. If it is not already on your system, install it. In Ubuntu Linux (and other Debian-based systems) type: 

sudo apt-get install cvs

Subversion command-line client

The program is called svn. To install it under Ubuntu, type: 

sudo apt-get install subversion


How to get software from CVS

Checking out software with the command-line client

Most simple version
cvs checkout URL path


How to get software from Subversion (SVN)

Subversion protocols

Subversion can be accessed trough several protocols:

  • http://
  • https://
  • svn://
  • svn+ssh://
  • file:///
  • svn+XXX://

The downloading instructions should tell you which one to use.

Checking out software with the command line tool

Open a terminal window. Then use the svn command.

In the most simple case, you will simply have to replace "URL" by the URL that you will find in the downloads instructions. I.e. type: 

svn checkout URL
Example - Mediawiki software

To get the mediawiki software, you need a URL like this (as is it won't work). 

svn checkout http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/folders_to_download sub_folder_name

E.g. to download version 13 (oct 2008), you will have to type: 

svn checkout http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/branches/REL1_13/phase3

To download the development version: 

svn checkout http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/phase3

Now, to install a new MediaWiki version, you usually would just download an archive. But extensions (and there lots of them) are often available through the MediaWiki subversion archive. It's simpler to use subversion than saving each file individually from the web interface.

To view extension code through the web:

If you want to check it out: 

svn checkout http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/NewsChannel/

The result will be 4 files in the NewsChannel directory.

Links

Tutorials

Manuals

Software links

List of RCS systems
Lists of clients
CVS
Subversion

Tutorials for revision control system administrators

(In case you plan to have your own ...)

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