1.3.3 Cleaning up

Before you turn to other tasks you decide to remove your working copy of tc. One acceptable way to do that is of course

$ cd ..
$ rm -r tc

but a better way is to use the release command (see section release—Indicate that a Module is no longer in use):

$ cd ..
$ cvs release -d tc
M driver.c
? tc
You have [1] altered files in this repository.
Are you sure you want to release (and delete) directory `tc': n
** `release' aborted by user choice.

The release command checks that all your modifications have been committed. If history logging is enabled it also makes a note in the history file. See section The history file.

When you use the ‘-d’ flag with release, it also removes your working copy.

In the example above, the release command wrote a couple of lines of output. ‘? tc’ means that the file ‘tc’ is unknown to CVS. That is nothing to worry about: ‘tc’ is the executable compiler, and it should not be stored in the repository. See section Ignoring files via cvsignore, for information about how to make that warning go away. See section release output, for a complete explanation of all possible output from release.

‘M driver.c’ is more serious. It means that the file ‘driver.c’ has been modified since it was checked out.

The release command always finishes by telling you how many modified files you have in your working copy of the sources, and then asks you for confirmation before deleting any files or making any note in the history file.

You decide to play it safe and answer n <RET> when release asks for confirmation.