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Removing files from a module

Modules change. New files are added, and old files disappear. Still, you want to be able to retrieve an exact copy of old releases of the module.

Here is what you can do to remove a file from a module, but remain able to retrieve old revisions:

• Make sure that you have not made any uncommitted modifications to the file. See section Viewing differences, for one way to do that. You can also use the status or update command. If you remove the file without committing your changes, you will of course not be able to retrieve the file as it was immediately before you deleted it.

• Remove the file from your working copy of the module. You can for instance use rm.

• Use `cvs remove filename' to tell CVS that you really want to delete the file.

• Use `cvs commit filename' to actually perform the removal of the file from the repository.

What happens when you commit the removal of the file is that inside the source repository, it is moved into a subdirectory called `Attic'. CVS normally doesn't look in that directory when you run e.g. checkout. However, if you are retrieving a certain revision via e.g. `cvs checkout -r some-tag', it will look at the files inside the `Attic' and include any files that contain the specified tag.

This method is simple and works quite well, but it has some known deficiencies:

• If you remove the file `foo.c', you cannot later create a new file called `foo.c' unless you manually remove the file `Attic/foo.c,v' inside the repository. On the other hand, if you remove `Attic/foo.c,v' you will of course not be able to retrieve any revision of the old file `foo.c'.

• If the file `bar.c' is present in release 1.0 of a product, and was accidentally removed in release 1.1, you cannot easily resurrect it to release 1.2. You have to move the file out of the `Attic' manually inside the repository. (Do a `mv Attic/file file').

There is a design for a rename database that will solve these problems and many others, but it is not yet implemented.

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