RCS - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

GNU RCS

The Revision Control System (RCS) manages multiple revisions of files. RCS automates the storing, retrieval, logging, identification, and merging of revisions. RCS is useful for text that is revised frequently, including source code, programs, documentation, graphics, papers, and form letters.

RCS was first developed by Walter F. Tichy at Purdue University in the early 1980s -- paper: RCS: A System for Version Control (1991) (troff, PostScript, PDF). See also the Purdue RCS Homepage.

RCS design is an improvement from its predecessor Source Code Control System (SCCS) (see GNU CSSC). The improvements include an easier user interface and improved storage of versions for faster retrieval. RCS improves performance by storing an entire copy of the most recent version and then stores reverse differences (called "deltas"). RCS uses GNU Diffutils to find the differences between versions.

Download / News

(FTP mirrors)

Latest release: 5.9.4 (2015-01-22)

portability fix in "make check" for OSX
We now avoid ‘head -N’, where N is a number, since that construct is not portable. See: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-rcs/2014-11/msg00000.html
doc improvements
- index ‘rcs -o’ better
  It seems the term "outdate" is itself outdated, nowadays (sigh). This command is now indexed under "deleting" and "removing", as well as "outdating".
- move ‘@cindex’ before ‘@item’ in tables
  The tables of substitution mode options and common options are now indexed such that selecting the indexed item in Emacs leaves point on the item's line and not the one after.
- new index entries
  For concepts (locking, implicit checkout, branching-related stuff) and keywords.
- introspective stuff moved into chapter "Hacking"
  These former chapters have been moved into chapter "Hacking": "File format", "Still missing", "Reporting bugs". As a nice side-effect, the table of contents of the PDF now is one page.
- ‘RCS_MEM_LIMIT’ on manpages updated
  RCS 5.9.2 (released 2013-11-28) changed how ‘RCS_MEM_LIMIT’ works. The Texinfo docs were updated but not the manpages.

maintenance tools

upgraded:

 GNU Automake 1.15
 GNU gnulib 2015-01-20 09:09:03
 GNU texinfo 5.2

as before:

 GNU Autoconf 2.69

(unadorned)

Documentation

Documentation for RCS is available online, as is documentation for most GNU software. You may also find more information about RCS by running info rcs or by looking at /usr/share/doc/rcs/, /usr/local/doc/rcs/, or similar directories on your system.

Mailing Lists

RCS has the following mailing lists:

bug-rcs is for reporting bugs.
help-rcs is for feature requests and user support.

Announcements about RCS and most other GNU software are made on info-gnu (archive).

Security reports that should not be made immediately public can be sent directly to the maintainer. If there is no response to an urgent issue, you can escalate to the general security mailing list for advice.

Getting involved

Development of RCS, and GNU in general, is a volunteer effort, and you can contribute. For information, please read How to help GNU. If you'd like to get involved, it's a good idea to join the discussion mailing list (see above).

Development: For development sources, issue trackers, and other information, please see the RCS project page at savannah.gnu.org.
Maintainer: RCS is currently being maintained by Thien-Thi Nguyen (tip jar). Please use the mailing lists for contact.

Licensing

RCS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.