C.8 The checkoutlist file

It may be helpful to use CVS to maintain your own files in the CVSROOT directory. For example, suppose that you have a script logcommit.pl which you run by including the following line in the commitinfo administrative file:

ALL   $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/logcommit.pl

To maintain logcommit.pl with CVS you would add the following line to the checkoutlist administrative file:

logcommit.pl

The format of checkoutlist is one line for each file that you want to maintain using CVS, giving the name of the file, followed optionally by more whitespace and any error message that should print if the file cannot be checked out into CVSROOT after a commit:

logcommit.pl	Could not update CVSROOT/logcommit.pl.

After setting up checkoutlist in this fashion, the files listed there will function just like CVS’s built-in administrative files. For example, when checking in one of the files you should get a message such as:

cvs commit: Rebuilding administrative file database

and the checked out copy in the CVSROOT directory should be updated.

Note that listing passwd (see Password authentication server) in checkoutlist is not recommended for security reasons.

For information about keeping a checkout out copy in a more general context than the one provided by checkoutlist, see Keeping a checked out copy.