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Summary of really basic use

The simplest possible use of prcs is just to use it to keep a single thread of project versions, thus allowing you to “roll back” at any time, and allowing multiple people to do maintenance on a single system simultaneously.

To start things off with a new project, P1, type

     % prcs checkout P1

in the working directory where you are developing your project. (If you haven't yet established a repository, prcs will create one.) If the project was already underway before you created a prcs project for it, you will probably want to start off by bringing your existing files under version control. To do so, type

     % prcs populate P1

Edit the file P1.prj to remove any files you don't want to control (like .o files, back-up files, and executables). You can also specify the list of files “in the population” on the command line. The files in any directories in this list will be included recursively. In effect, specifying no files is equivalent to specifying “.” (the current directory).

     % prcs populate P1 file1 file2

Whenever you want to checkpoint your project, type

     % prcs checkin

from the root working directory (the one with P1.prj in it). If someone else has checked in files in the meantime, you will be notified of discrepancies, which you can handle by typing

     % prcs merge

from the root working directory and (after it's done), editing the files.

Whenever it comes time to begin working on a deposited version of the project, you can go to a clean directory and check out the latest version with

     % prcs checkout P1

Make your modifications and check back in as before.