10.2 Bringing a file up to date
When you want to update or merge a file, use the cvs update -d
command. For files that are not up to date this is roughly equivalent
to a checkout command: the newest revision of the file is
extracted from the repository and put in your working directory. The
-d option, not necessary with checkout, tells CVS
that you wish it to create directories added by other developers.
Your modifications to a file are never lost when you
use update. If no newer revision exists,
running update has no effect. If you have
edited the file, and a newer revision is available,
CVS will merge all changes into your working copy.
For instance, imagine that you checked out revision 1.4 and started
editing it. In the meantime someone else committed revision 1.5, and
shortly after that revision 1.6. If you run update on the file
now, CVS will incorporate all changes between revision 1.4 and 1.6 into
your file.
If any of the changes between 1.4 and 1.6 were made too
close to any of the changes you have made, an
overlap occurs. In such cases a warning is
printed, and the resulting file includes both
versions of the lines that overlap, delimited by
special markers.
See section update—Bring work tree in sync with repository, for a complete description of the
update command.
