[Pythoncard-users] cvs instructions for Windows

[Kevin A. <al...@se...>]

If you look at the Concurrent Versions System (cvs) page for the PythonCard
project, the instructions probably seem somewhat mysterious.
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=19015

Here are some instructions for Windows users that want to do anonymous cvs
checkouts to keep up with changes in PythonCard rather than waiting for
periodic releases. Most of the tutorials I've seen assume Unix/Linux. I
haven't found any that walk the user step-by-step through the process for
Windows. These instructions use PyCrust and PythonCard as examples, but the
same steps apply to other projects you would find on SourceForge.

ka
---

The set of instructions below is for getting anonymous cvs working on a
Windows machine. If you want to be able to checkin files then you'll also
need an ssh client, but most people don't need that capability, so I'm not
covering it here.

The main cvs site is http://www.cvshome.org/

1. Create a directory to act as your cvs HOME that will hold the cvs.exe and
related files. For this discussion, I'm going to use a directory called
c:\cvshome.

2. Download the latest command-line client.
  http://www.cvshome.org/dev/codewindow.html
as of 2002-02-10, the latest version was:
  http://ftp.cvshome.org/win32/cvs1-11-1p1.zip

3. Unzip the file and move cvs.exe into the c:\cvshome directory.

4. Add c:\cvshome to your PATH.
Under Windows 95/98 add the directory to the autoexec.bat file. You probably
already have a PATH setting in there, so just add

;c:\cvshome

to the end.

Under Windows NT/2000/XP, open the System control panel, click on the
Advanced tab and then the Environment Variables button to set the path.

5. Set the HOME environment variable required by cvs.
Under Windows 95/98 you'll need to add this line to your autoexec.bat

set HOME=c:\cvshome

Under Windows NT/2000/XP you'll need to add HOME as an environment variable.
This is done in the same dialog as the PATH environment variable of step 4.

6. Create a file named .cvsrc in the c:\cvshome directory that contains the
following three lines:

cvs -z6
update -dP
diff -c

The Windows Explorer won't let you create a file starting with a period
(dot), so you'll need to use a text editor and then save .cvsrc as a text
file from the editor. You can use the rename command in DOS if your text
editor can't save a filename that starts with a period. Open a Command
Prompt (DOS shell) and type

cd c:\cvshome
rename cvsrc.txt .cvsrc

[cd is the DOS command to Change the current Directory.] That's assuming you
saved the text file as cvsrc.txt. The commands above control the default cvs
behavior; I originally got my .cvsrc file from Robin Dunn along with the
explanation of what the commands do. cvs will use strong compression (-z6).
When doing a cvs update it should create new directories (-d) and prune
empty directories (-P). And cvs makes context style diffs (diff -c), which
IMO are a little more human readable, instead of whatever the default is
called.

7. This is an optional, but recommended step. Create a directory and
PYTHONPATH environment variable to simplify working with multiple Python
projects checked out from cvs. Rather than keeping packages such as
PythonCardPrototype and PyCrust in my c:\python22\lib\site-packages
directory, I have a separate directory called c:\python where I keep
additional packages that I'm working on. Any package in that directory will
override the same package that might have been installed into the
c:\python22\lib\site-packages directory. You can use a different directory
name if you want.

7a. Under Windows 95/98 add this line to the autoexec.bat file:

set PYTHONPATH=c:\python

Under Windows NT/2000/XP you'll need to add PYTHONPATH as an environment
variable.

8. Now reboot your machine, so that when you restart the machine, the HOME
and PATH environment variables are set correctly. To verify they are
correct, open a Command Prompt (DOS shell) and type

set

then press Return. You should see output that includes something like this
(the actual PATH will vary depending on what was already set on your box):

HOME=C:\cvshome
Path=C:\Python22\;C:\cvshome
PYTHONPATH=c:\python

9. Test to see if cvs is working. We'll use PyCrust as an example, since it
has a relatively small number of files. Open a Command Prompt (DOS shell)
and type

cd c:\python
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/pycrust co
PyCrust

[The text of the cvs command above should all be on one line, it will
probably be wrapped once it goes through your mail program.] Note that the
module name such as PyCrust in the line above will be used to create a new
directory inside the directory you're currently at. So in the example above,
you'll end up with a c:\python\PyCrust directory that contains the checked
out files.

10. Now checkout the latest version of PythonCard (the following text should
all be on one line)

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/pythonc
ard co PythonCardPrototype

11. To update a package all you have to do is a "cvs update". If you checked
out both PyCrust and PythonCardPrototype above, then you can open a command
prompt and type

cd c:\python\pycrust
cvs update
cd ..\pythoncardprototype
cvs update

And you'll get the latest updates of both packages. You can also create a
batch file or shortcut, so you can update without going into DOS. I've
attached a screen shot of a Shortcut I made to cvs.exe. I added " update" to
the "Target:" and changed the "Start in:" directory to the PythonCard
package directory. I moved that shortcut to my desktop and I can
double-click it to update to the latest version of PythonCard.


-------------------------------
Addendum by Patrick K. O'Brien:
I do have a slightly different arrangement on my machine, that
others might find useful as a variation on your instructions. First, I have
a bin directory where I keep batch files and little utility programs, such
as cvs.exe. That bin directory is on my path. Second, I'm sharing the HOME
directory established by Cygwin. Basically, any HOME will do and since
Cygwin needed one as well I just took advantage of it. Third, I call my code
directory Code, rather that Python, which is no big deal but I just mention
it because I'm going to show you my autoexec.bat file:

Example autoexec.bat:
---------------------
SET PATH=C:\bin;C:\Python22;C:\cygwin\bin
SET HOME=C:\cygwin\home\pobrien
SET CVS_RSH=ssh
SET PYTHONPATH=C:\Code
SET PYTHONSTARTUP=C:\Code\.pythonrc.py
doskey


(send suggestions or corrections to the address below)

ka
---
Kevin Altis
al...@se...