Requests

By convention, requests which begin with a capital letter do not elicit a response from the server, while all others do -- save one. The exception is `gzip-file-contents'. Unrecognized requests will always elicit a response from the server, even if that request begins with a capital letter.

File contents (noted below as file transmission) can be sent in one of two forms. The simpler form is a number of bytes, followed by a newline, followed by the specified number of bytes of file contents. These are the entire contents of the specified file. Second, if both client and server support `gzip-file-contents', a `z' may precede the length, and the `file contents' sent are actually compressed with `gzip' (RFC1952/1951) compression. The length specified is that of the compressed version of the file.

In neither case are the file content followed by any additional data. The transmission of a file will end with a newline iff that file (or its compressed form) ends with a newline.

Root pathname \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server which CVSROOT to use. Note that pathname is a local directory and not a fully qualified CVSROOT variable. pathname must already exist; if creating a new root, use the init request, not Root. pathname does not include the hostname of the server, how to access the server, etc.; by the time the CVS protocol is in use, connection, authentication, etc., are already taken care of.

Valid-responses request-list \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server what responses the client will accept. request-list is a space separated list of tokens.

valid-requests \n

Response expected: yes. Ask the server to send back a Valid-requests response.

Repository repository \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server what repository to use. This should be a directory name from a previous server response. Note that this both gives a default for Entry and Modified and also for ci and the other commands; normal usage is to send a Repository for each directory in which there will be an Entry or Modified , and then a final Repository for the original directory, then the command.

Directory local-directory \n

Additional data: repository \n. Response expected: no. This is like Repository, but the local name of the directory may differ from the repository name. If the client uses this request, it affects the way the server returns pathnames; see section Responses. local-directory is relative to the top level at which the command is occurring (i.e. the last Directory or Repository which is sent before the command); to indicate that top level, `.' should be send for local-directory.

Max-dotdot level \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that level levels of directories above the directory which Directory requests are relative to will be needed. For example, if the client is planning to use a Directory request for `../../foo', it must send a Max-dotdot request with a level of at least 2. Max-dotdot must be sent before the first Directory request.

Static-directory \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that the directory most recently specified with Repository or Directory should not have additional files checked out unless explicitly requested. The client sends this if the Entries.Static flag is set, which is controlled by the Set-static-directory and Clear-static-directory responses.

Sticky tagspec \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that the directory most recently specified with Repository has a sticky tag or date tagspec. The first character of tagspec is `T' for a tag, or `D' for a date. The remainder of tagspec contains the actual tag or date.

Checkin-prog program \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that the directory most recently specified with Directory has a checkin program program. Such a program would have been previously set with the Set-checkin-prog response.

Update-prog program \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that the directory most recently specified with Directory has an update program program. Such a program would have been previously set with the Set-update-prog response.

Entry entry-line \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server what version of a file is on the local machine. The name in entry-line is a name relative to the directory most recently specified with Repository. If the user is operating on only some files in a directory, Entry requests for only those files need be included. If an Entry request is sent without Modified, Unchanged, or Lost for that file the meaning depends on whether UseUnchanged has been sent; if it has been it means the file is lost, if not it means the file is unchanged.

Modified filename \n

Response expected: no. Additional data: mode, \n, file transmission. Send the server a copy of one locally modified file. filename is relative to the most recent repository sent with Repository. If the user is operating on only some files in a directory, only those files need to be included. This can also be sent without Entry, if there is no entry for the file.

Lost filename \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that filename no longer exists. The name is relative to the most recent repository sent with Repository. This is used for any case in which Entry is being sent but the file no longer exists. If the client has issued the UseUnchanged request, then this request is not used.

Unchanged filename \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that filename has not been modified in the checked out directory. The name is relative to the most recent repository sent with Repository. This request can only be issued if UseUnchanged has been sent.

UseUnchanged \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that the client will be indicating unmodified files with Unchanged, and that files for which no information is sent are nonexistent on the client side, not unchanged. This is necessary for correct behavior since only the server knows what possible files may exist, and thus what files are nonexistent.

Notify filename \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that a edit or unedit command has taken place. The server needs to send a Notified response, but such response is deferred until the next time that the server is sending responses. Response expected: no. Additional data:

notification-type \t time \t clienthost \t
working-dir \t watches \n

where notification-type is `E' for edit or `U' for unedit, time is the time at which the edit or unedit took place, clienthost is the name of the host on which the edit or unedit took place, and working-dir is the pathname of the working directory where the edit or unedit took place. watches are the temporary watches to set; if it is followed by \t then the tab and the rest of the line are ignored.

Questionable filename \n

Response expected: no. Additional data: no. Tell the server to check whether filename should be ignored, and if not, next time the server sends responses, send (in a M response) `?' followed by the directory and filename. filename must not contain `/'; it needs to be a file in the directory named by the most recent Directory request.

Case \n

Response expected: no. Tell the server that filenames should be matched against ignore patterns in a case-insensitive fashion. Note that this does not apply to other comparisons--for example the filenames given in Entry and Modified requests for the same file must match in case regardless of whether the Case request is sent.

Argument text \n

Response expected: no. Save argument for use in a subsequent command. Arguments accumulate until an argument-using command is given, at which point they are forgotten.

Argumentx text \n

Response expected: no. Append \n followed by text to the current argument being saved.

Global_option option \n

Response expected: no. Transmit one of the global options `-q', `-Q', `-l', `-t', `-r', or `-n'. option must be one of those strings, no variations (such as combining of options) are allowed. For graceful handling of valid-requests, it is probably better to make new global options separate requests, rather than trying to add them to this request.

Gzip-stream level \n

Response expected: no. Use zlib (RFC 1950/1951) compression to compress all further communication between the client and the server. After this request is sent, all further communication must be compressed. All further data received from the server will also be compressed. The level argument suggests to the server the level of compression that it should apply; it should be an integer between 1 and 9, inclusive, where a higher number indicates more compression.

Kerberos-encrypt \n

Response expected: no. Use Kerberos encryption to encrypt all further communication between the client and the server. This will only work if the connection was made over Kerberos in the first place. If both the Gzip-stream and the Kerberos-encrypt requests are used, the Kerberos-encrypt request should be used first. This will make the client and server encrypt the compressed data, as opposed to compressing the encrypted data. Encrypted data is generally incompressible.

Set variable=value \n

Response expected: no. Set a user variable variable to value.

expand-modules \n

Response expected: yes. Expand the modules which are specified in the arguments. Returns the data in Module-expansion responses. Note that the server can assume that this is checkout or export, not rtag or rdiff; the latter do not access the working directory and thus have no need to expand modules on the client side.

co \n

ci \n

diff \n

tag \n

status \n

log \n

add \n

remove \n

rdiff \n

rtag \n

admin \n

export \n

history \n

watchers \n

editors \n

annotate \n

Response expected: yes. Actually do a cvs command. This uses any previous Argument, Repository, Entry, Modified, or Lost requests, if they have been sent. The last Repository sent specifies the working directory at the time of the operation. No provision is made for any input from the user. This means that ci must use a -m argument if it wants to specify a log message.

init root-name \n

Response expected: yes. If it doesn't already exist, create a CVS repository root-name. Note that root-name is a local directory and not a fully qualified CVSROOT variable. The Root request need not have been previously sent.

update \n

Response expected: yes. Actually do a cvs update command. This uses any previous Argument, Repository, Entry, Modified, or Lost requests, if they have been sent. The last Repository sent specifies the working directory at the time of the operation. The -I option is not used--files which the client can decide whether to ignore are not mentioned and the client sends the Questionable request for others.

import \n

Response expected: yes. Actually do a cvs import command. This uses any previous Argument, Repository, Entry, Modified, or Lost requests, if they have been sent. The last Repository sent specifies the working directory at the time of the operation. The files to be imported are sent in Modified requests (files which the client knows should be ignored are not sent; the server must still process the CVSROOT/cvsignore file unless -I ! is sent). A log message must have been specified with a -m argument.

watch-on \n

watch-off \n

watch-add \n

watch-remove \n

Response expected: yes. Actually do the cvs watch on, cvs watch off, cvs watch add, and cvs watch remove commands, respectively. This uses any previous Argument, Repository, Entry, Modified, or Lost requests, if they have been sent. The last Repository sent specifies the working directory at the time of the operation.

release \n

Response expected: yes. Note that a cvs release command has taken place and update the history file accordingly.

noop \n

Response expected: yes. This request is a null command in the sense that it doesn't do anything, but merely (as with any other requests expecting a response) sends back any responses pertaining to pending errors, pending Notified responses, etc.

update-patches \n

Response expected: yes. This request does not actually do anything. It is used as a signal that the server is able to generate patches when given an update request. The client must issue the -u argument to update in order to receive patches.

gzip-file-contents level \n

Response expected: no. Note that this request does not follow the response convention stated above. Gzip-stream is suggested instead of gzip-file-contents as it gives better compression; the only reason to implement the latter is to provide compression with CVS 1.8 and earlier. The gzip-file-contents request asks the server to compress files it sends to the client using gzip (RFC1952/1951) compression, using the specified level of compression. If this request is not made, the server must not compress files. This is only a hint to the server. It may still decide (for example, in the case of very small files, or files that already appear to be compressed) not to do the compression. Compression is indicated by a `z' preceding the file length. Availability of this request in the server indicates to the client that it may compress files sent to the server, regardless of whether the client actually uses this request.

other-request text \n

Response expected: yes. Any unrecognized request expects a response, and does not contain any additional data. The response will normally be something like `error unrecognized request', but it could be a different error if a previous command which doesn't expect a response produced an error.

When the client is done, it drops the connection.

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