CI(1) General Commands Manual CI(1)

ci — check in RCS revisions

ci [-qV] [-d[date]] [-f[rev]] [-I[rev]] [-i[rev]] [-j[rev]] [-k[rev]] [-l[rev]] [-M[rev]] [-mmsg] [-Nsymbol] [-nsymbol] [-r[rev]] [-sstate] [-t[str]] [-u[rev]] [-wusername] [-xsuffixes] [-ztz] file ...

The ci program is used to check in new revisions to RCS files.

When a file is checked in, it is stored in the RCS directory with a specific revision number, and the original file itself is deleted. The RCS file is stored with the same name, but with ‘,v’ appended. ci will prompt for a check-in message, to be stored with the file, which can be displayed using rlog(1).

Revision numbering starts at 1.1 and increases logically. Numbering can be altered using the -k option, however. The ‘,v’ suffix can also be altered, using the -x option.

ci also supports keyword substitution – see the rcs(1) man page for more information.

The following options are supported:

[date]
Uses date for check-in date and time. If date is not specified, use the working file's last modification time.
[rev]
Force check-in – even if no changes have been made to the working file.
[rev]
Interactive mode.
[rev]
Only do initial check-in. Print error and refuse to do check-in if the RCS file already exists.
[rev]
Only do update check-in. Print error and refuse to do check-in if the RCS file does not already exist.
[rev]
Search the working file for keywords and set the revision number, creation date, state and author to the values found in these keywords instead of computing them.
[rev]
The same as -r, but also immediately checks out the deposited revision and locks it. This is useful if you wish to continue to edit the working file after check-in.
[rev]
Set the modification time of the file to the date of the retrieved revision.
msg
Specify a log message. A line beginning with a hash character (‘#’) is considered a comment and ignored.
symbol
Assign the symbolic name symbol to the checked in revision, overwriting any previous assignment of symbol.
symbol
The same as -N except it does not overwrite previous symbols.
Be quiet about reporting.
[rev]
Check in revision rev. However, if rev is not specified the meaning is completely different – override any -l or -u options, ensuring the default behaviour of releasing a lock and removing the working file.
state
Sets the state of the deposited revision to the identifier state. The specified value may not contain a space character.
[str]
Change the descriptive text. The argument str is interpreted as the name of a file containing the descriptive text or, if prefixed with a ‘-’, the actual descriptive text itself. If no argument is given, this option is ignored (for compatibility reasons).
[rev]
The same as -r, but also immediately checks out the deposited revision read-only. Useful if you wish to read the working file after check-in.
Print RCS's version number.
username
Uses username as the author field of the deposited revision.
suffixes
Specifies the suffixes for RCS files. Suffixes should be separated by the ‘/’ character.
tz
Specify the date output format in keyword substitution, and the default time zone for date used in the -d option.

If set, this variable should contain a list of space-delimited options that are prepended to the argument list.
When set, this variable specifies the directory where temporary files are to be created. The default is set to /tmp.

The ci utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

co(1), ident(1), rcs(1), rcsclean(1), rcsdiff(1), rcsmerge(1), rlog(1)

OpenBSD 7.8 August 12, 2013 CI(1)