NAME

NAME
VCS - Version Control System access in Perl

SYNOPSIS
use VCS;
$file = VCS::File->new($ARGV[0]);
print $file->url, ":\n";
for $version ($file->versions) {
print $version->version,
' was checked in by ',
$version->author,
"\n";
}

DESCRIPTION
"VCS" is an API for abstracting access to all version control systems
from Perl code. This is achieved in a similar fashion to the "DBI" suite
of modules. There are "container" classes, "VCS::Dir", "VCS::File", and
"VCS::Version", and "implementation" classes, such as "VCS::Cvs::Dir",
"VCS::Cvs::File", and "VCS::Cvs::Version", which are subclasses of their
respective "container" classes.

The container classes are instantiated with URLs. There is a URL scheme
for entities under version control. The format is as follows:

vcs://localhost/VCS::Cvs/fs/path/?query=1

The "query" part is ignored for now. The path must be an absolute path,
meaningful to the given class. The class is an implementation class,
such as "VCS::Cvs".

The "container" classes work as follows: when the "new" method of a
container class is called, it will parse the given URL, using the
"VCS->parse_url" method. It will then call the "new" of the
implementation's appropriate container subclass, and return the result.
For example,

VCS::Version->new('vcs://localhost/VCS::Cvs/fs/path/file/1.2');

will return a "VCS::Cvs::Version".

An implementation class is recognised as follows: its name starts with
"VCS::", and "require "VCS/Classname.pm"" will load the appropriate
implementation classes corresponding to the container classes.

VCS METHODS
VCS->parse_url
This returns a four-element list:

($hostname, $classname, $path, $query)

For example,

VCS->parse_url('vcs://localhost/VCS::Cvs/fs/path/file/1.2');

will return

(
'localhost',
'VCS::Cvs',
'/fs/path/file/1.2',
''
)

This is mostly intended for use by the container classes, and its
interface is subject to change.

VCS->class_load
This loads its given implementation class.

This is mostly intended for use by the container classes, and its
interface is subject to change.

VCS::* METHODS
Please refer to the documentation for VCS::Dir, VCS::File, and
VCS::Version; as well as the implementation specific documentation as in
VCS::Cvs, VCS::Rcs.

AUTHORS
Greg McCarroll <[email protected]>
Leon Brocard
Ed J

KUDOS
Thanks to the following for patches,

Richard Clamp
Pierre Denis
Slaven Rezic

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1998-2003 Leon Brocard & Greg McCarroll. All rights
reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
VCS::Cvs, VCS::Dir, VCS::File, VCS::Rcs, VCS::Version.