C.8 The checkoutlist file

It may be helpful to use CVS to maintain your own files in the ‘CVSROOT’ directory. For example, suppose that you have a script ‘logcommit.pl’ which you run by including the following line in the ‘commitinfo’ administrative file:

ALL   $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/logcommit.pl

To maintain ‘logcommit.pl’ with CVS you would add the following line to the ‘checkoutlist’ administrative file:

logcommit.pl

The format of ‘checkoutlist’ is one line for each file that you want to maintain using CVS, giving the name of the file, followed optionally by more whitespace and any error message that should print if the file cannot be checked out into CVSROOT after a commit:

logcommit.pl	Could not update CVSROOT/logcommit.pl.

After setting up ‘checkoutlist’ in this fashion, the files listed there will function just like CVS's built-in administrative files. For example, when checking in one of the files you should get a message such as:

cvs commit: Rebuilding administrative file database

and the checked out copy in the ‘CVSROOT’ directory should be updated.

Note that listing ‘passwd’ (see section Setting up the server for password authentication) in ‘checkoutlist’ is not recommended for security reasons.

For information about keeping a checkout out copy in a more general context than the one provided by ‘checkoutlist’, see Keeping a checked out copy.