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Make a working directory containing copies of the
source files specified by modules. You must execute
checkout before using most of the other CVS
commands, since most of them operate on your working
directory.
The modules part of the command are either symbolic names for some collection of source directories and files, or paths to directories or files in the repository. The symbolic names are defined in the `modules' file. See section The modules file.
Depending on the modules you specify, checkout may
recursively create directories and populate them with
the appropriate source files. You can then edit these
source files at any time (regardless of whether other
software developers are editing their own copies of the
sources); update them to include new changes applied by
others to the source repository; or commit your work as
a permanent change to the source repository.
Note that checkout is used to create
directories. The top-level directory created is always
added to the directory where checkout is
invoked, and usually has the same name as the specified
module. In the case of a module alias, the created
sub-directory may have a different name, but you can be
sure that it will be a sub-directory, and that
checkout will show the relative path leading to
each file as it is extracted into your private work
area (unless you specify the `-Q' option).
Running checkout on a directory that was already
built by a prior checkout is also permitted, and
has the same effect as specifying the `-d' option
to the update command, that is, any new
directories that have been created in the repository
will appear in your work area. See section update--Bring work tree in sync with repository.
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