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NAME
    ci - check in RCS revisions

SYNOPSIS
    ci [options] file ...

DESCRIPTION
    ci stores new revisions into RCS files.  Each pathname matching an RCS
    suffix is taken to be an RCS file. All others are assumed to be  work-
    ing files containing new revisions. ci deposits the contents of each
    working file into the corresponding RCS file. If only a  working file
    is given, ci tries to find the corresponding RCS file in an RCS subdi-
    rectory and then in the working file's directory.  For more details,
    see FILE NAMING below.

    For ci to work, the caller's login must be on the access list, except
    if the access list is empty or the caller is the superuser or the owner
    of the file. To append a new revision to an existing branch, the tip
    revision on that branch must be locked by the caller. Otherwise, only
    a new branch can be created. This restriction is not enforced for the
    owner of the file if non-strict locking is used (see rcs(1)).  A lock
    held by someone else can be broken with the rcs command.

    Unless the -f option is given, ci checks whether the revision to be
    deposited differs from the preceding one. If not, instead of creating
    a new revision ci reverts to the preceding one. To revert, ordinary ci
    removes the working file and any lock; ci -l keeps and ci -u removes
    any lock, and then they both generate a new working file much as if
    co -l or co -u had been  applied to the preceding revision.  When
    reverting, any -n and -s options apply to the preceding revision.

    For each revision deposited, ci prompts for a log message. The log
    message should summarize the change and must be terminated by end-of-
    file or by a line containing . by itself. If several files are checked
    in ci asks whether to reuse the previous log message. If the standard
    input is not a terminal, ci suppresses the prompt and uses the same log
    message for all files. See also -m.

    If the RCS file does not exist, ci creates it and deposits the contents
    of the working file as the initial revision (default number: 1.1). The
    access list is initialized to empty. Instead of the log message, ci
    requests descriptive text (see -t below).

    The number rev  of the deposited revision can be given by any of the
    options -f, -i, -I, -j, -k, -l, -M, -q, -r, or -u.  rev  can be sym-
    bolic, numeric,  or mixed.  Symbolic names in rev must already be
    defined; see the -n and -N options for assigning names during checkin.
    If rev is $, ci determines the revision number from keyword values in
    the working file.

    If rev begins with a period, then the default branch (normally the
    trunk) is prepended to it. If rev is a branch number followed by a
    period, then the latest revision on that branch is used.

    If rev is a revision number, it must be higher than the latest one on
    the branch to which rev belongs, or must start a new branch.

    If rev is a branch rather than a revision number, the new revision is
    appended to that branch.  The level number is obtained by incrementing
    the tip revision number of that branch.  If rev indicates a non-exist-
    ing branch, that branch is created with the initial revision numbered
    rev.1.

    If rev is omitted, ci tries to derive the new revision number from the
    caller's last lock. If the caller has locked the tip revision  of a
    branch, the new revision is appended to that branch. The new revision
    number is obtained by incrementing the tip revision number.  If the
    caller locked a non-tip revision, a new branch is started at that revi-
    sion by incrementing the highest branch number at that revision.  The
    default initial branch and level numbers are 1.

    If rev is omitted and the caller has no lock, but owns the file and
    locking is not set to strict, then the revision  is appended to the
    default branch (normally the trunk; see the -b option of rcs(1)).

    Exception: On the trunk, revisions can be appended to the end, but not
    inserted.

OPTIONS
    -rrev Check in revision rev.

    -r   The bare -r option (without any revision) has an unusual meaning
    in ci. With other RCS commands, a bare -r option specifies the
    most recent revision on the default branch, but with ci, a bare
    -r option reestablishes the default behavior of releasing a lock
    and removing the working file, and is used to  override any
    default -l or -u options established  by shell aliases or
    scripts.

    -l[rev]
    works like -r, except it performs an additional co -l for the
    deposited revision. Thus, the deposited revision is immediately
    checked out again and locked. This is useful for saving a revi-
    sion although one wants to continue editing  it after the
    checkin.

    -u[rev]
    works like -l, except that the deposited revision is not locked.
    This lets one read the working file immediately after checkin.

    The -l, bare -r, and -u options are mutually exclusive and
    silently override each other. For example, ci -u -r is equiva-
    lent to ci -r because bare -r overrides -u.

    -f[rev]
    forces a  deposit; the new revision is deposited even it is not
    different from the preceding one.

    -k[rev]
    searches the working file for keyword values to determine its
    revision number,  creation date, state, and author (see co(1)),
    and assigns these values to the deposited revision, rather than
    computing  them locally. It also generates a default login mes-
    sage noting the login of the caller and the actual checkin date.
    This option is useful for software distribution. A revision
    that is sent to several sites should be checked in with the -k
    option at these  sites to preserve the original number, date,
    author, and state. The extracted keyword values and the default
    log message can be overridden with the options -d, -m, -s, -w,
    and any option that carries a revision number.

    -q[rev]
    quiet mode; diagnostic output is not printed. A revision that
    is not different from the preceding one is not deposited, unless
    -f is given.

    -i[rev]
    initial checkin; report an error if the RCS file already exists.
    This avoids race conditions in certain applications.

    -j[rev]
    just checkin and do not initialize; report an error if the RCS
    file does not already exist.

    -I[rev]
    interactive mode; the user is prompted and questioned even if
    the standard input is not a terminal.

    -d[date]
    uses date for the checkin date and time.  The date is specified
    in free format as explained in co(1). This is useful for  lying
    about the checkin date, and for -k if no date is available. If
    date is empty, the working file's time of last modification is
    used.

    -M[rev]
    Set the modification time on any new working file to be the date
    of the retrieved revision. For example, ci -d -M -u f does not
    alter f's modification time, even if f's contents change due to
    keyword substitution. Use this option with care; it can confuse
    make(1).

    -mmsg uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked
    in. By convention, log messages that start with # are comments
    and are ignored by programs like GNU Emacs's vc package.  Also,
    log messages that start with {clumpname} (followed by  white
    space) are meant to be clumped together if possible, even if
    they are associated with different files; the {clumpname}  label
    is used only for clumping, and is not considered to be part of
    the log message itself.

    -nname assigns the symbolic name name to the number of the checked-in
    revision.  ci prints an error  message if name is already
    assigned to another number.

    -Nname same as -n, except that it overrides a previous assignment of
    name.

    -sstate
    sets the  state of the  checked-in revision to the identifier
    state. The default state is Exp.

    -tfile writes descriptive text from the contents of the named file into
    the RCS file, deleting the existing text.  The file cannot begin
    with -.

    -t-string
    Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, delet-
    ing the existing text.

    The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an ini-
    tial checkin; it is silently ignored otherwise.

    During the initial checkin, if -t is not given, ci obtains the
    text from standard input, terminated by end-of-file or by a line
    containing . by itself. The user is prompted for  the text if
    interaction is possible; see -I.

    For backward compatibility with older versions of RCS, a bare -t
    option is ignored.

    -T   Set the RCS file's modification time to the new revision's time
    if the former precedes the latter and there is a new revision;
    preserve the RCS file's modification time otherwise.  If you
    have locked a revision, ci usually updates the RCS file's modi-
    fication time to the current time, because the lock is stored in
    the RCS file and removing the lock requires changing the RCS
    file. This can create an RCS file newer than the  working file
    in one of two ways: first, ci -M can create a working file with
    a date before the current time; second, when reverting to the
    previous revision the RCS file can change while the working file
    remains unchanged. These two cases can cause excessive recompi-
    lation caused by a make(1) dependency of the working file on the
    RCS file.  The -T option inhibits this recompilation by  lying
    about the RCS file's date. Use this option with care; it can
    suppress recompilation even when a checkin of one  working file
    should affect another working file associated with the same RCS
    file. For example, suppose the RCS file's time is 01:00, the
    (changed)  working file's time is 02:00, some other copy of the
    working file has a time of 03:00, and the current time is 04:00.
    Then ci -d -T sets the RCS file's time to 02:00 instead of the
    usual 04:00; this causes make(1) to think (incorrectly) that the
    other copy is newer than the RCS file.

    -wlogin
    uses login for the author field of the deposited revision. Use-
    ful for lying about the author, and for -k if no author is
    available.

    -V   Print RCS's version number.

    -Vn  Emulate RCS version n. See co(1) for details.

    -xsuffixes
    specifies the suffixes for RCS files. A nonempty suffix matches
    any pathname ending in the suffix. An empty suffix matches any
    pathname of the form RCS/path or path1/RCS/path2.  The -x option
    can specify a list of suffixes separated by /.  For example,
    -x,v/ specifies two suffixes: ,v and the empty suffix. If two
    or more suffixes are specified, they are tried in order when
    looking for an RCS file; the first one that works is used for
    that file. If no RCS file is found but an RCS file can be cre-
    ated, the suffixes are tried in order to determine the new RCS
    file's name. The default for suffixes is installation-depen-
    dent; normally it is ,v/ for hosts like Unix that permit commas
    in filenames, and is empty (i.e. just the empty suffix) for
    other hosts.

    -zzone specifies  the date output format in keyword substitution, and
    specifies the default time zone for date in the -ddate option.
    The zone  should be empty, a numeric UTC offset, or the special
    string LT for local time.  The default is an empty zone,  which
    uses the  traditional RCS format of UTC without any time zone
    indication and with slashes separating the parts of the  date;
    otherwise, times  are output in ISO 8601 format with time zone
    indication. For example, if local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm
    Pacific Standard Time, eight hours west of UTC, then the time is
    output as follows:

     option  time output
     -z     1990/01/12 04:00:00  (default)
     -zLT   1990-01-11 20:00:00-08
     -z+05:30 1990-01-12 09:30:00+05:30

    The -z option does not affect dates stored in RCS  files,  which
    are always UTC.

FILE NAMING
    Pairs of RCS files and working files can be specified in three ways
    (see also the example section).

    1) Both the RCS file and the working file are given. The RCS pathname
    is of the form path1/workfileX and the working pathname is of the form
    path2/workfile where path1/ and  path2/  are (possibly  different or
    empty) paths, workfile is a filename, and X is an RCS suffix. If X is
    empty, path1/ must start with RCS/ or must contain /RCS/.

    2) Only the RCS file is given. Then the working file is created in the
    current directory and its name is derived from the name of the RCS file
    by removing path1/ and the suffix X.

    3) Only the working file is given. Then ci considers each RCS suffix X
    in turn, looking for an RCS file of the form path2/RCS/workfileX or (if
    the former is not found and X is nonempty) path2/workfileX.

    If the RCS file is specified without a path in 1) and 2), ci looks for
    the RCS  file first in the directory ./RCS and then in the current
    directory.

    ci reports an error if an attempt to open an RCS file fails for an
    unusual reason, even if the RCS file's pathname is just one of several
    possibilities. For example, to suppress  use of RCS commands  in a
    directory d, create a regular file named d/RCS so that casual attempts
    to use RCS commands in d fail because d/RCS is not a directory.

EXAMPLES
    Suppose ,v is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdi-
    rectory RCS with an RCS file io.c,v. Then each of the following com-
    mands check in a copy of io.c into RCS/io.c,v as the latest revision,
    removing io.c.

    ci io.c;   ci RCS/io.c,v;  ci  io.c,v;
    ci io.c RCS/io.c,v;  ci io.c  io.c,v;
    ci RCS/io.c,v io.c;  ci io.c,v io.c;

    Suppose instead that the empty suffix is an RCS suffix and the current
    directory contains a subdirectory RCS with an RCS file io.c. The each
    of the following commands checks in a new revision.

    ci io.c;   ci RCS/io.c;
    ci io.c RCS/io.c;
    ci RCS/io.c io.c;

FILE MODES
    An RCS file created by ci inherits the read and execute permissions
    from the working file. If the RCS file exists already,  ci preserves
    its read and execute permissions. ci always turns off all write per-
    missions of RCS files.

FILES
    Temporary files are created in the directory containing the working
    file, and also  in the temporary directory (see TMPDIR under ENVIRON-
    MENT). A semaphore file or files are created in the directory contain-
    ing the  RCS file. With a nonempty suffix, the semaphore names begin
    with the first character of the suffix; therefore, do not specify an
    suffix whose first character could be that of a working filename. With
    an empty suffix, the semaphore names end with _ so working filenames
    should not end in _.

    ci never changes an RCS or working file.  Normally, ci unlinks the file
    and creates a new one; but instead of breaking a chain of one or more
    symbolic links to an RCS file, it unlinks the destination file instead.
    Therefore, ci breaks any hard or symbolic links to any working file it
    changes;  and hard links to RCS files are ineffective, but symbolic
    links to RCS files are preserved.

    The effective user must be able to search and write the directory con-
    taining the RCS file. Normally, the real user must be able to read the
    RCS and working files and to search and write the directory containing
    the working file; however, some older hosts cannot easily switch
    between real and effective users, so on these hosts the effective user
    is used  for all accesses. The effective user is the same as the real
    user unless your copies of ci and co have setuid privileges.  As
    described in the next section, these privileges yield extra security if
    the effective user owns all RCS files and directories, and if only the
    effective user can write RCS directories.

    Users can control access to RCS files by setting the permissions of the
    directory containing the files; only users with write access to the
    directory can use RCS commands to change its RCS files. For example,
    in hosts that allow a user to belong to several groups, one can make a
    group's RCS directories writable to that group only.  This approach
    suffices for informal projects, but it means that any group member can
    arbitrarily change the  group's RCS files, and can even remove them
    entirely. Hence more formal projects sometimes distinguish between an
    RCS administrator, who  can change the RCS files at will, and other
    project members, who can check in new revisions but cannot otherwise
    change the RCS files.

SETUID USE
    To prevent anybody but their RCS administrator from deleting revisions,
    a set of users can employ setuid privileges as follows.

    o Check that the host supports RCS setuid use. Consult a trustworthy
  expert  if there are  any doubts. It is best if the seteuid system
  call works as described in Posix 1003.1a Draft  5, because RCS can
  switch  back and forth easily between real and effective users, even
  if the real user is root. If not, the second best is if the setuid
  system call supports saved setuid (the {_POSIX_SAVED_IDS} behavior of
  Posix 1003.1-1990); this fails only if the real or effective user is
  root. If RCS detects any failure in setuid, it quits immediately.

    o Choose  a user A to serve as RCS administrator for the set of users.
  Only A can invoke the rcs command on the users' RCS files. A should
  not be root or any other user with special powers. Mutually suspi-
  cious sets of users should use different administrators.

    o Choose a pathname B to be a directory of files to be executed by the
  users.

    o Have A set up B to contain copies of ci and co that are setuid to A
  by copying the commands from their standard installation directory D
  as follows:

    mkdir B
    cp D/c[io] B
    chmod go-w,u+s B/c[io]

    o Have each user prepend B to their path as follows:

    PATH=B:$PATH; export PATH # ordinary shell
    set path=(B $path) # C shell

    o Have A create each RCS directory R with write access only to A as
  follows:

    mkdir R
    chmod go-w R

    o If you want to let only certain users read the  RCS files, put the
  users into a group G, and have A further protect the RCS directory as
  follows:

    chgrp G R
    chmod g-w,o-rwx R

    o Have A copy old RCS files (if any) into R, to  ensure  that A owns
  them.

    o An RCS file's access list limits who can check in and lock revisions.
  The default access list is empty, which grants checkin access to any-
  one who can read the RCS file. If you want limit checkin access,
  have A invoke rcs -a on the  file; see rcs(1).  In particular,
  rcs -e -aA limits access to just A.

    o Have A initialize any new RCS files with rcs -i before initial
  checkin, adding the -a option if you want to limit checkin access.

    o Give setuid privileges only to ci, co, and rcsclean; do not give them
  to rcs or to any other command.

    o Do not use other setuid commands to invoke RCS commands; setuid is
  trickier than you think!

ENVIRONMENT
    RCSINIT
    options prepended to the argument list, separated by spaces.  A
    backslash  escapes spaces within an option. The RCSINIT options
    are prepended to the argument lists of most RCS commands.  Use-
    ful RCSINIT options include -q, -V, -x, and -z.

    TMPDIR Name of the temporary directory. If not set, the environment
    variables TMP and TEMP are inspected instead and the first value
    found is  taken;  if none of them are set, a host-dependent
    default is used, typically /tmp.

DIAGNOSTICS
    For each revision, ci prints the RCS file, the working file, and the
    number of both the deposited and the preceding revision.  The exit sta-
    tus is zero if and only if all operations were successful.

IDENTIFICATION
    Author: Walter F. Tichy.
    Manual Page Revision: 5.17; Release Date: 1995/06/16.
    Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
    Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.

SEE ALSO
   co(1),emacs(1),ident(1),make(1),rcs(1),rcsclean(1),rcsdiff(1),
   rcsintro(1),rcsmerge(1),rlog(1), setuid(2), rcsfile(5)
    Walter F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control, Software--Practice
    & Experience 15, 7 (July 1985), 637-654.