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Unix Programming - Combining Tools with Emacs - Emacs and Version Control
Emacs and Version Control
Once you've corrected your program's syntax and fixed its
runtime bugs, you may want to save the changes into a
version-controlled archive. If you've only tried running
version-control tools from the shell, it's hard to blame you for
sloughing off this important step. Who wants to have to remember to
run checkout/checkin commands around every edit operation?
Fortunately, Emacs offers help here
too. Code built into Emacs implements a
simple-to-use front end for SCCS,
RCS, CVS, or
Subversion. The single command Ctl-x v v tries to
deduce the next logical version-control operation to do on the file
you are visiting. The operations this includes are registering a file,
checking out and locking it, and checking it back in (accepting a
change comment in a pop-up buffer).[139]
Emacs also helps you view the change
history of version-controlled files, and helps you back out changes
you don't want. It makes it easy to apply version-control operations
to whole sets or project directory trees of files. In general, it does
a pretty good job of making version-control operations painless.
The implications of these features are larger than you might
guess before you've gotten used to it. You'll find, once you get used
to fast and easy version control, that it's extremely
liberating. Because you know you can always revert to a known-good
state, you'll find you feel more free to develop in a fluid and
exploratory way, trying lots of changes out to see their
effects.
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