GNU RCS 5.9.0 available

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

release notes:

  Incremental improvements.  We welcome Honza Horak,
  Carlie J. Coats, Jr., Jiri Moskovcak, James Olin Oden,
  and Derek McEachern to the THANKS file.

  thi

README excerpt:

  GNU RCS (Revision Control System) manages multiple revisions of files.
  RCS can store, retrieve, log, identify, and merge revisions.
  It is useful for files that are revised frequently, e.g.,
  programs, documentation, graphics, and papers.

NEWS excerpt:

  - 5.9.0 | 2013-05-06

    - distribution now .tar.lz and .tar.xz

        If you have GNU tar, you can use "tar xf" and it will DTRT.
        If not, you can use "lzip -dc TARBALL | tar xf -" to unpack
        the .tar.lz, or "xz -dc TARBALL | tar xf -" for the .tar.xz.

    - planned retirement

      - configure option ‘--enable-compat2’

        This option enables reading of files written by RCS 2.x (before
        RCS was GNU, even), but the file format became obsolete in 1982.
        Support for it WILL BE REMOVED in a near future GNU RCS release.

      - common option ‘-V’

        This option is obsoleted by ‘--version’ (since 5.8, 2011-08-30).
        Support for it WILL BE REMOVED in some future GNU RCS release.
        Its use now produces a warning to stderr.

        Please note that ‘-VN’ (N ∈ {3,4,5}) is a separate issue.

    - bugs fixed

      - ‘rcsmerge --help’ mentions ‘-A’, ‘-E’, ‘-e’

        These options are accepted and internally passed to diff3(1).

      - ‘ident -VN’ and ‘merge -VN’ now signal error

        For these commands, the argument to ‘-V’ has no meaning.
        Previously, such invocations would display version info,
        ignoring the arg.  Now they signal a "bad option" error.

    - new features

      - ident(1) recognizes Subversion "fixed-width keyword syntax"

        In addition to the normal keyword pattern, for Subversion 1.2
        (and later) compatability, ident(1) also recognizes patterns
        having one of the forms:

        $KEYWORD:: TEXT $
        ;; two colons and space after keyword
        ;; space before ending $

        $KEYWORD:: TEXT#$
        ;; two colons and space after keyword
        ;; hash before ending $

      - new co(1) option ‘-S’ for "self-same" mode

        In this mode, the owner of a lock is unimportant, just that it
        exists.  Effectively, this prevents you from checking out the
        same revision twice.

        $ whoami
          ttn

        $ co -l -f z
          RCS/z,v  -->  z
          revision 1.1 (locked)
          done

        $ co -S -l -f z
          RCS/z,v  -->  z
          co: RCS/z,v: Revision 1.1 is already locked by ttn.

      - several RCS commands "internalized" into rcs(1)

        As part of an ongoing effort to modernize the command-line
        interface of GNU RCS, the previously standalone programs:

          ci, co, rcs, rcsclean, rcsdiff, rcsmerge, rlog

        can now be invoked as "rcs PROGRAM".  In this case, we call
        PROGRAM a "command", and also provide some aliases.  E.g., you
        can type "rcs diff" in addition to "rcs rcsdiff" (and "rcsdiff",
        of course).  We plan to support standalone (w/o "rcs" prefix)
        invocation from the shell at least through the 5.x series of
        releases -- not indefinitely, but for a good while, yet.

        The rcs(1) program itself now supports ‘--commands’ to list all
        the commands, ‘--aliases’ to list their aliases, as well as
        ‘--help COMAMND’ to show the help for COMMAND.

        Note that programs ident(1) and merge(1) remain standalone.

        Lastly, in the manual, section "Invoking rcs" now describes both
        "modern" and "legacy" usages.  Also, the internalized commands
        invocations mentions both "rcs COMMAND" and "PROGRAM" styles.

      - ‘--help’ output includes a one-line description

        E.g., "merge --help" says: "Three-way file merge".

      - most long options can be recognized if partially specified

        With the exception of "rcs --help COMMAND", where "--help" must
        be spelled out in full, all long options can now be recognized
        even if partially specified.  For example, "rcs --al" is
        recognized as "rcs --aliases".

      - updated portability

        Several more Gnulib (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib) modules
        are now in use.

      - new cross-compilation support

        The configure script now assigns "pessimistic defaults" when
        cross-compiling.  See new section "cross-compilation" in README.

      - effects of ‘-VN’ (N ∈ {3,4,5}) documented

        See (info "(rcs) Misc common options").

    - maintenance tools updated
      - gnulib-tool (GNU gnulib 2013-05-01 06:14:19) 0.0.7913-5191

tarball and detached signature:

  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/rcs/rcs-5.9.0.tar.lz
  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/rcs/rcs-5.9.0.tar.lz.sig
  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/rcs/rcs-5.9.0.tar.xz
  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/rcs/rcs-5.9.0.tar.xz.sig

source code:

  http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/rcs.git/?h=p

homepage:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen
GPG key: 4C807502

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