1. Introduction

Source code control system is a MUST to manage the changes occuring to software project during development. Developers need a complete history of changes to backtrack to previous versions in case of any problems. Since source code is the most vital component of any software project and software development takes a huge amount of time and money, it is very important to spend some time in safe-guarding the source code by using source code control systems like CVS and RCS.

CVS (Concurrent Version Control System) is a powerful tool which allows concurrent development of software by multiple users. It uses RCS underneath and has application layer interface as a wrapper on top RCS.

CVS can record the history of your files (usually, but not always, source code). CVS only stores the differences between versions, instead of every version of every file you've ever created. CVS also keeps a log of who, when and why changes occurred, among other aspects.

CVS is very helpful for managing releases and controlling the concurrent editing of source files among multiple authors. Instead of providing version control for a collection of files in a single directory, CVS provides version control for a hierarchical collection of directories consisting of revision controlled files.

These directories and files can then be combined together to form a software release.

CVS can be used for storing "C", "C++", Java, Perl, HTML and other files.