CVS access to LessTif
Author: LessTif Core Team
Keywords: LessTif, CVS, Repository, Sources

# LessTif CVS repository

CVS, the Concurrent Versions System, is a widely used, free source code-control system. The LessTif sources are maintained using this powerful tool.

## Who should use it?

Most people should use stable LessTif releases. People with specific problems that have just been fixed should use the most recent version of the source, straight from the CVS repository. If you want to use CVS, keep reading this text. If not, you might want to go to the download page. We need people to test the current sources, so if you are up to it, go ahead!
It is however a good idea to subscribe to our `lesstif-commits` mailinglist to stay informed what's actually going on.

## Retrieving sources from CVS

As of August 2000 (just after the 0.91.6 release), the LessTif sources have been moved to SourceForge. Instructions from SourceForge on accessing CVS (anonymous access) are available.

To access CVS, first set the environment variable `CVSROOT` to `:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lesstif`. How you do this depends on your shell. If you use the bourne shell (bash and its descendants) you can type

    export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lesstif

If you use csh, you will have to use the `setenv` command. After that, you have to login to CVS. You do this by typing `cvs login`. When prompted, just hit Enter (an empty password). After that, you can type `cvs -z5 checkout lesstif` to retrieve the sources for the first time.

You can also browse the CVS repository using your favourite web browser. This is obviously not useful for downloading the complete source tree. It is just a convenient way to use CVS's versioning mechanism to figure out exactly what has changed recently in specific files. Or just retrieve a few specific sources themselves. The browsable CVS is at http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lesstif/lesstif.

## Building from CVS sources

To build LessTif from a CVS checkout you will also need libtool, automake and autoconf.
For further informtaion please refer to our installation instructions.

## Misc CVS issues

Here we collect some helpful suggestions for using the CVS repository. You don't need to read it if you're a "CVS professional" and are familiar with all its numerous commandline options.

- Once you have a checked out CVS distribution, `cvs update` will get you up to date. However, when a directory is added, like the recent addition of lib/Xlt, `cvs update` alone is not sufficient. You should periodically run `cvs update -d` from the top of the tree to get any new directories and their contents.
  On the other hand the LessTif CVS repository carries some old, empty directories. You can get rid of them by using the `-P` option when updating.
  So the best choice is therefore to run
  `cvs update -d -P`
- To set the default options for CVS you can create a `~/.cvsrc`. Here's an example:

      diff -u
      update -P -d
      cvs -q -z9

- Sometimes you might checkout not the current version, but an older one, e.g. from a given date (`-D` option). However some people forget that CVS remembers these settings ("sticky bit") and won't update to the current level unless indicated to so. Specifying the current date will only help once, better remove the sticky bits by the `-A` option.