[cvsnt] remove(delete) a revision from cvs

[Glen Starrett]

Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> Arthur Barrett wrote:
> 
>> There is a "cvs admin" command that will let an administrator destroy
>> your SCM integrity by removing a revision, however it has not been
>> tested in years and there are various reports that it can harm the
>> repository.  
> 
> Do we have an authoritative list of commands (command/option combinations,
> ...) that are considered tested and safe to use? If not, is anybody
> interested in creating one? If so, what would be a good procedure and
> format?

Arthur is talking about the issues with deleting versions of binary 
files -- there are problems removing the interim versions with binary 
deltas (and/or compression, I don't recall the specifics).

The admin command itself falls into that gray area that is slowly being 
replaced or deprecated, piece by piece.  That is the only command that I 
know of that isn't fully supported (and it has the all-caps "THIS 
COMMAND..." warning on it as well.

Admin -m is safe.  -o is dangerous and destroys the history of your 
repository (which is what it was designed to do).  -p I believe works, 
but I have never used it.  -t, -t-string I have no idea about.

Admin -l and -u aren't used anymore, that was from before reserved edits 
were added to CVSNT.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.

Regards,


-- 
Glen Starrett
Technical Account Manager, North America
March Hare Software, LLC

http://march-hare.com/cvspro/