Restoring CVS from Attic Files

Question

I've been given a tar.gz file which is supposed to be a snapshot of a dead project. The project used to be stored in a CVS repository. The problem is that I don't get actual snapshots of the files. Instead, each directory has a subdirectory called "Attic" and a bunch of "f,v" files, where "f" seems to be the name of the original file. The "f,v" files look like a list of changes made to the original files over time.

Since the project is dead and the CVS server doesn't exist anymore, I have to find a way to restore the original files from these "f,v" files. Does anyone know if it's possible to restore a snapshot of the repository from these given files?

Answer 1

Dude, that is the repository

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So you totally win, you have the repository itself.

Unpack it, and check out the HEAD.

$ mkdir cvs; cd cvs
$ tar xvfz tar.gz
$ CVSROOT=$PWD
$ export CVSROOT
$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir test
$ cd test
$ cvs history          # revel in past glory
$ cvs checkout project # try a top-level dir from $CVSROOT, it's probably a module name
$ cd project
$ cvs log              # someone typed in all those log messages