


CO(1)                                                       CO(1)


NAME
       co - check out RCS revisions

SYNOPSIS
       co [options] file ...

DESCRIPTION
       co  retrieves  a revision from each RCS file and stores it
       into the corresponding working file.

       Pathnames matching an RCS suffix  denote  RCS  files;  all
       others   denote   working  files.   Names  are  paired  as
       explained in ci(1).

       Revisions of an RCS file can  be  checked  out  locked  or
       unlocked.    Locking   a   revision  prevents  overlapping
       updates.  A revision checked out for reading or processing
       (e.g.,  compiling) need not be locked.  A revision checked
       out for editing and later checkin must normally be locked.
       Checkout  with locking fails if the revision to be checked
       out is currently locked by another user.  (A lock  can  be
       broken  with rcs(1).)  Checkout with locking also requires
       the caller to be on the  access  list  of  the  RCS  file,
       unless  he  is  the owner of the file or the superuser, or
       the access list is empty.  Checkout without locking is not
       subject to accesslist restrictions, and is not affected by
       the presence of locks.

       A revision is selected by options for revision  or  branch
       number,  checkin  date/time,  author,  or state.  When the
       selection options are applied in combination, co retrieves
       the  latest  revision that satisfies all of them.  If none
       of the selection options is specified,  co  retrieves  the
       latest revision on the default branch (normally the trunk,
       see the -b option of rcs(1)).  A revision or branch number
       can  be attached to any of the options -f, -I, -l, -M, -p,
       -q, -r, or -u.  The options -d (date), -s (state), and  -w
       (author)  retrieve  from  a  single  branch,  the selected
       branch, which is either specified by one of -f,  ...,  -u,
       or the default branch.

       A co command applied to an RCS file with no revisions cre-
       ates a zero-length working file.  co always performs  key-
       word substitution (see below).

OPTIONS
       -r[rev]
              retrieves  the latest revision whose number is less
              than or equal to rev.  If rev  indicates  a  branch
              rather than a revision, the latest revision on that
              branch is retrieved.  If rev is omitted, the latest
              revision  on  the default branch (see the -b option
              of rcs(1)) is retrieved.  If rev is  $,  co  deter-
              mines  the  revision  number from keyword values in



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              the working file.  Otherwise, a  revision  is  com-
              posed  of  one  or  more numeric or symbolic fields
              separated by periods.  If rev begins with a period,
              then  the  default  branch  (normally the trunk) is
              prepended to it.  If rev is a  branch  number  fol-
              lowed by a period, then the latest revision on that
              branch is used.  The numeric equivalent of  a  sym-
              bolic  field is specified with the -n option of the
              commands ci(1) and rcs(1).

       -l[rev]
              same as -r, except that it also locks the retrieved
              revision for the caller.

       -u[rev]
              same  as  -r,  except that it unlocks the retrieved
              revision if it was locked by the caller.  If rev is
              omitted,  -u  retrieves  the revision locked by the
              caller, if there is one;  otherwise,  it  retrieves
              the latest revision on the default branch.

       -f[rev]
              forces  the overwriting of the working file; useful
              in connection with -q.  See also FILE MODES  below.

       -kkv   Generate  keyword  strings  using the default form,
              e.g. $Revision: 1.1 $ for the Revision keyword.   A
              locker's  name  is  inserted  in  the  value of the
              Header, Id, and Locker keyword strings  only  as  a
              file  is  being  locked,  i.e.  by ci -l and co -l.
              This is the default.

       -kkvl  Like -kkv, except that a locker's  name  is  always
              inserted if the given revision is currently locked.

       -kk    Generate only keyword  names  in  keyword  strings;
              omit their values.  See KEYWORD SUBSTITUTION below.
              For example, for the Revision keyword, generate the
              string  $Revision$  instead  of  $Revision:  1.1 $.
              This option is useful to ignore differences due  to
              keyword substitution when comparing different revi-
              sions of a file.  Log messages are  inserted  after
              $Log$ keywords even if -kk is specified, since this
              tends to be more useful when merging changes.

       -ko    Generate the old keyword  string,  present  in  the
              working  file  just  before it was checked in.  For
              example, for the  Revision  keyword,  generate  the
              string $Revision: 1.1 $ instead of $Revision: 1.1 $
              if that is how the string appeared  when  the  file
              was  checked  in.  This can be useful for file for-
              mats that cannot tolerate any changes to substrings
              that happen to take the form of keyword strings.




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       -kb    Generate  a binary image of the old keyword string.
              This acts like -ko, except it performs all  working
              file  input  and output in binary mode.  This makes
              little difference on Posix and Unix hosts,  but  on
              DOS-like  hosts  one  should use rcs -i -kb to ini-
              tialize an RCS file intended to be used for  binary
              files.   Also,  on  all hosts, rcsmerge(1) normally
              refuses to merge files when -kb is in effect.

       -kv    Generate only keyword values for  keyword  strings.
              For example, for the Revision keyword, generate the
              string 1.1 instead of $Revision: 1.1 $.   This  can
              help  generate files in programming languages where
              it  is  hard  to  strip  keyword  delimiters   like
              $Revision: $  from a string.  However, further key-
              word substitution cannot be performed once the key-
              word  names  are  removed, so this option should be
              used with care.  Because of this danger  of  losing
              keywords,  this  option cannot be combined with -l,
              and the owner write permission of the working  file
              is turned off; to edit the file later, check it out
              again without -kv.

       -p[rev]
              prints the retrieved revision on the standard  out-
              put  rather  than  storing  it in the working file.
              This option is useful when co is part of a pipe.

       -q[rev]
              quiet mode; diagnostics are not printed.

       -I[rev]
              interactive mode; the user is  prompted  and  ques-
              tioned  even  if the standard input is not a termi-
              nal.

       -ddate retrieves  the  latest  revision  on  the  selected
              branch  whose  checkin  date/time  is  less than or
              equal to date.  The date and time can be  given  in
              free  format.   The  time  zone LT stands for local
              time; other common time zone names are  understood.
              For  example, the following dates are equivalent if
              local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm  Pacific  Stan-
              dard  Time, eight hours west of Coordinated Univer-
              sal Time (UTC):












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                     8:00 pm lt
                     4:00 AM, Jan. 12, 1990           default is UTC
                     1990-01-12 04:00:00+00           ISO 8601 (UTC)
                     1990-01-11 20:00:00-08           ISO 8601 (local time)
                     1990/01/12 04:00:00              traditional RCS format
                     Thu Jan 11 20:00:00 1990 LT      output of ctime(3) + LT
                     Thu Jan 11 20:00:00 PST 1990     output of date(1)
                     Fri Jan 12 04:00:00 GMT 1990
                     Thu, 11 Jan 1990 20:00:00 -0800  Internet RFC 822
                     12-January-1990, 04:00 WET

              Most fields in the date and time can be  defaulted.
              The default time zone is normally UTC, but this can
              be overridden by the -z option.  The other defaults
              are determined in the order year, month, day, hour,
              minute, and second (most to least significant).  At
              least  one  of  these fields must be provided.  For
              omitted fields that are of higher significance than
              the highest provided field, the time zone's current
              values are assumed.  For all other omitted  fields,
              the  lowest possible values are assumed.  For exam-
              ple, without -z, the date  20,  10:30  defaults  to
              10:30:00  UTC  of  the  20th of the UTC time zone's
              current month and  year.   The  date/time  must  be
              quoted if it contains spaces.

       -M[rev]
              Set  the  modification time on the new working file
              to be the date of the retrieved revision.  Use this
              option with care; it can confuse make(1).

       -sstate
              retrieves  the  latest  revision  on  the  selected
              branch whose state is set to state.

       -T     Preserve the modification time on the RCS file even
              if  the RCS file changes because a lock is added or
              removed.  This option can suppress extensive recom-
              pilation  caused  by  a  make(1) dependency of some
              other copy of the working file  on  the  RCS  file.
              Use this option with care; it can suppress recompi-
              lation even when it is needed, i.e. when the change
              of  lock  would mean a change to keyword strings in
              the other working file.

       -w[login]
              retrieves  the  latest  revision  on  the  selected
              branch  which was checked in by the user with login
              name login.  If the argument login is omitted,  the
              caller's login is assumed.

       -jjoinlist
              generates  a  new revision which is the join of the
              revisions on  joinlist.   This  option  is  largely



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              obsoleted  by rcsmerge(1) but is retained for back-
              wards compatibility.

              The joinlist is a comma-separated list of pairs  of
              the  form  rev2:rev3, where rev2 and rev3 are (sym-
              bolic or numeric) revision numbers.  For  the  ini-
              tial  such pair, rev1 denotes the revision selected
              by the above options -f, ..., -w.   For  all  other
              pairs,  rev1  denotes the revision generated by the
              previous pair.   (Thus,  the  output  of  one  join
              becomes the input to the next.)

              For  each  pair,  co  joins revisions rev1 and rev3
              with respect to rev2.  This means that all  changes
              that transform rev2 into rev1 are applied to a copy
              of rev3.  This is particularly useful if  rev1  and
              rev3 are the ends of two branches that have rev2 as
              a common ancestor.  If rev1<rev2<rev3 on  the  same
              branch,  joining  generates a new revision which is
              like rev3, but with all changes that lead from rev1
              to rev2 undone.  If changes from rev2 to rev1 over-
              lap with changes from  rev2  to  rev3,  co  reports
              overlaps as described in merge(1).

              For  the  initial  pair,  rev2 can be omitted.  The
              default is the common  ancestor.   If  any  of  the
              arguments  indicate  branches, the latest revisions
              on those branches are assumed.  The options -l  and
              -u lock or unlock rev1.

       -V     Print RCS's version number.

       -Vn    Emulate  RCS  version n, where n can be 3, 4, or 5.
              This can be useful  when  interchanging  RCS  files
              with  others who are running older versions of RCS.
              To see which version of RCS your correspondents are
              running,  have  them invoke rcs -V; this works with
              newer versions of RCS.  If it  doesn't  work,  have
              them  invoke  rlog  on  an RCS file; if none of the
              first  few  lines  of  output  contain  the  string
              branch:  it  is version 3; if the dates' years have
              just two digits, it is version 4; otherwise, it  is
              version  5.   An RCS file generated while emulating
              version 3 loses its default branch.  An  RCS  revi-
              sion generated while emulating version 4 or earlier
              has a time stamp that is off by up to 13 hours.   A
              revision  extracted  while  emulating  version 4 or
              earlier contains  abbreviated  dates  of  the  form
              yy/mm/dd and can also contain different white space
              and line prefixes in the substitution for $Log$.

       -xsuffixes
              Use suffixes to characterize RCS files.  See  ci(1)
              for details.



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CO(1)                                                       CO(1)


       -zzone specifies the date output format in keyword substi-
              tution, 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  with-
              out any time zone indication and with slashes sepa-
              rating the parts of the date; otherwise, times  are
              output  in  ISO  8601 format with time zone indica-
              tion.  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.

KEYWORD SUBSTITUTION
       Strings  of  the form $keyword$ and $keyword:...$ embedded
       in the text are replaced with strings of  the  form  $key-
       word:value$  where  keyword  and  value  are  pairs listed
       below.  Keywords can be embedded  in  literal  strings  or
       comments to identify a revision.

       Initially,  the user enters strings of the form $keyword$.
       On checkout, co replaces these strings with strings of the
       form $keyword:value$.  If a revision containing strings of
       the latter form is checked back in, the value fields  will
       be  replaced  during the next checkout.  Thus, the keyword
       values are automatically updated on checkout.  This  auto-
       matic substitution can be modified by the -k options.

       Keywords and their corresponding values:

       $Author$
              The login name of the user who checked in the revi-
              sion.

       $Date$ The date and time  the  revision  was  checked  in.
              With -zzone a numeric time zone offset is appended;
              otherwise, the date is UTC.

       $Header$
              A standard header containing the full  pathname  of
              the  RCS  file,  the  revision number, the date and
              time, the author, the state,  and  the  locker  (if
              locked).  With -zzone a numeric time zone offset is
              appended to the date; otherwise, the date is UTC.

       $Id$   Same as $Header$, except that the RCS  filename  is



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              without a path.

       $Locker$
              The  login name of the user who locked the revision
              (empty if not locked).

       $Log$  The log message supplied during  checkin,  preceded
              by  a header containing the RCS filename, the revi-
              sion number, the author, and  the  date  and  time.
              With -zzone a numeric time zone offset is appended;
              otherwise, the date is UTC.  Existing log  messages
              are  not replaced.  Instead, the new log message is
              inserted after $Log:...$.  This is useful for accu-
              mulating a complete change log in a source file.

              Each  inserted  line is prefixed by the string that
              prefixes the $Log$ line.  For example, if the $Log$
              line is "// $Log: tan.cc $", RCS prefixes each line
              of the log with "// ".  This  is  useful  for  lan-
              guages  with  comments  that  go  to the end of the
              line.  The convention for other languages is to use
              a  "  *  "  prefix inside a multiline comment.  For
              example, the initial log comment  of  a  C  program
              conventionally is of the following form:

                     /*
                      * $Log$
                      */

              For  backwards compatibility with older versions of
              RCS, if the log prefix is /* or  (*  surrounded  by
              optional  white space, inserted log lines contain a
              space instead of / or (;  however,  this  usage  is
              obsolescent and should not be relied on.

       $Name$ The  symbolic  name used to check out the revision,
              if   any.    For   example,   co -rJoe    generates
              $Name: Joe $.  Plain co generates just $Name:  $.

       $RCSfile$
              The name of the RCS file without a path.

       $Revision$
              The revision number assigned to the revision.

       $Source$
              The full pathname of the RCS file.

       $State$
              The  state  assigned  to  the  revision with the -s
              option of rcs(1) or ci(1).

       The following characters in keyword values are represented
       by escape sequences to keep keyword strings well-formed.



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              char     escape sequence
              tab      \t
              newline  \n
              space    \040
              $        \044
              \        \\

FILE MODES
       The working file inherits the read and execute permissions
       from the RCS file.  In addition, the owner  write  permis-
       sion  is  turned  on,  unless  -kv  is  set or the file is
       checked out unlocked and locking is  set  to  strict  (see
       rcs(1)).

       If a file with the name of the working file exists already
       and has write permission, co aborts the  checkout,  asking
       beforehand  if  possible.  If the existing working file is
       not writable or -f is given, the working file  is  deleted
       without asking.

FILES
       co  accesses files much as ci(1) does, except that it does
       not need to read the working file unless a revision number
       of $ is specified.

ENVIRONMENT
       RCSINIT
              options  prepended  to the argument list, separated
              by spaces.  See ci(1) for details.

DIAGNOSTICS
       The RCS pathname, the working pathname, and  the  revision
       number  retrieved  are  written  to the diagnostic output.
       The exit status is zero if and only if all operations were
       successful.

IDENTIFICATION
       Author: Walter F. Tichy.
       Manual Page Revision: 1.1; Release Date: 1996/08/12.
       Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
       Copyright  (C)  1990,  1991,  1992,  1993, 1994, 1995 Paul
       Eggert.

SEE ALSO
       rcsintro(1), ci(1), ctime(3), date(1), ident(1),  make(1),
       rcs(1),  rcsclean(1),  rcsdiff(1),  rcsmerge(1),  rlog(1),
       rcsfile(5)
       Walter  F.  Tichy,  RCS--A  System  for  Version  Control,
       Software--Practice   &   Experience  15,  7  (July  1985),
       637-654.

LIMITS
       Links to the RCS and working files are not preserved.




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CO(1)                                                       CO(1)


       There is no way to selectively suppress the  expansion  of
       keywords,  except  by  writing them differently.  In nroff
       and troff, this is done by embedding the null-character \&
       into the keyword.





















































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