Recover files from CVS * archive, v files

Question

I am trying to restore old source code (plain text) from a bunch of files that were previously managed using CVS. I have a directory containing all the source code files in CVS *, v format. It looks mostly like source files, but there is quite a bit of information about the header and revision of CVS.

Is there an easy way to strip all CVS stuff and just keep the latest version of the file?

Answer 1

Yes, install the CVS client, set the CVSROOT environment variable to point to the root of your repository, and enter cvs checkout dir where dir is the top-level directory in your repository.

If for some reason you have only separate files ,v , they are in the rcs format, so if the rcs program is installed, it should be able to get a hint revision from any file ,v .

Answer 2

You do not even need to use CVS. CVS was just an interface for RCS, and * .v files are really RCS files. Just check them out. for example, if you have foo, v just do:

 co foo

and it will check foo from file, v

Answer 3

The latest Windows binaries can be found here:

 https://ftp.gnu.org/non-gnu/cvs/binary/stable/x86-woe/ 

For example: Put your reposition files here: c: \ cvs (for example, c: \ cvs \ PROJECT create c: \ cvs \ CVSROOT

create c: \ work Save cvs .exe here

mileage:

 cvs -dc:\cvs checkout PROJECT 

Answer 4

Try setting up your CVS client and reading your files as a local CVS repository.

Answer 5

Depending on your platform, you may find that rcs works well if you only view a few files at a time. On many Unix / Linux systems, if my memory serves, you can use the co (checkout) command directly from the command line.

Or you could take advantage of the fact that CVS and rcs store the latest version of the file on the head at the top of the file, and any other changes are created by applying diffs inside. Therefore, you can probably easily uninstall the latest version using a text editor and perhaps automate it using a perl script. This trick will not work for any other version.

These are options if there are problems with the quick installation of the CVS server (if it is not already installed, they usually come with Unix-like systems) and checks.