Conceptual Overview

CVS is a version control system. It is used to record the history of your source files.


Bugs can creep in when software is modified, and may not be detected until a long time after the modification is made. With CVS, you can retrieve old versions to find which change caused the bug.

CVS can also help when a project is being worked on by multiple people, where overwriting each others changes is easy to do. CVS solves this problem by having each developer work in his/her own directory and then instructing CVS to merge the work when each developer is done.

The CVS files are stored using RCS. For additional information regarding the format of these files see the RCS tutorial.