

                               SOURCE MINDER

			    Version Control System

                                Version 1.0

				User Manual

                    Copyright (c) 1992 G.N.E. SOFTWARE LTD.


This is a shareware copy of Source Minder, which you may use to evaluate its 
suitability for your needs. If you decide that Source Minder is of use
to you, then you must register to continue using it.

Registration provides the following benefits:

o	Latest version of Source Minder.
o	Printed version of the full manual.
o	Technical support.

See the file REGISTER.TXT for details on how to register.


G.N.E. SOFTWARE LTD. accept no responsiblity or liability for any loss or 
damage arising from the use or misuse of this software.

All Company names and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks
of their respective companies.

                            Source Minder User Manual


           About this manual

           This user manual provides installation instructions and a
           tutorial on how to use Source Minder.

           This tutorial does not cover all of the features of Source
           Minder.  For these it is recommended that you read the reference
           manual.  You will find full details of each Source Minder
           command, and all error messages in the reference manual.

           Introduction

           Source Minder is a version control system which keeps track of
           the changes made to source files throughout a projects life.

           Source Minder provides the following benefits to the management
           of a project:

           o       Ability to recreate the source files for any previous
                   version.

           o       Documentation of all changes to the source files.

           o       Prevents the same version of a file from being updated at
                   the same time by two or more different users.

           o       Allows you to experiment with changes to the source, with
                   the knowledge that you may backtrack to a saved working
                   version at any time.

           o       Provides an easy way to recover after accidental
                   modification or deletion of files.

           o       Allows two or more different versions of a source file to
                   be modified at the same time in a controlled manner.

           o       Disk space is kept to a minimum as only the differences
                   with previous versions are saved, and these are saved in
                   a compresses format.




















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           Installation

           The easiest way to install Source Minder is by running the Source
           Minder SETUP program which will copy the Source Minder commands
           onto your hard disk and perform any necessary modifications of
           your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. As an alternative Source Minder may be
           installed manually.

           Before installation you will need to know the following:

           o       The drive you are installing from.

           o       The drive and directory where you wish to install Source
                   Minder. This may be either an existing directory or a new
                   directory to be created. If you have installed a previous
                   version of Source Minder, then you should use the same
                   directory, unless you wish to keep the old version.


           System requirements

           To install and run the utilities you will require a PC with the
           following:

           o       Any 8086 compatible processor.

           o       256K free RAM.

           o       Hard disk with 400K free for the installation of Source
                   Minder.

           o       MS-DOS version 3.0 or later, or a compatible Operating
                   System.

           o       A floppy disk drive suitable for the supplied media.
























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           Standard installation

           This is the recommended and simplest installation method. The
           following steps assume that you are installing from the A: drive.
           If you are installing from B: or any other drive/directory, then
           use that drive/directory in place of A:

           Insert the floppy disk into the drive and enter:

               A:\SETUP

           You will now need to fill in four input fields. If you wish to
           change the supplied default or if you make a mistake, use the
           <backspace> key. To move to the next field you can either use the
           <return> or <tab> key. Installation may be aborted at this stage
           by pressing the <Esc> key. The fields are:

           o       'Copy from': This is the drive and directory that you are
                   installing from. This is validated to make sure that it
                   does contain Source Minder.

           o       'Copy to': This is the drive and directory that you will
                   be installing Source Minder. If this directory doesn't
                   exist you will be asked for confirmation before it is
                   created.

           o       'User Name': This is an optional field.  If you do fill
                   it in, then the name entered will be used when Source
                   Minder records modifications to the source files.  If you
                   do not fill in this field, then you may need to specify
                   your user name as a parameter to some of the Source
                   Minder commands.

           o       'Modify autoexec.bat': If you answer 'Y' for yes then
                   your autoexec.bat file will be modified by the setup
                   program. Your old AUTOEXEC.BAT file will be renamed
                   before modification to AUTOEXEC.GNE. If you answer 'N'
                   for no you will be informed at the end of the
                   installation of any changes that need to be made to your
                   AUTOEXEC.BAT file before running the utilities.

           When you have entered all of these fields you will be asked for
           confirmation before continuing. If you answer 'N' for no, you can
           edit the four fields again. If you answer 'Y' for yes then the
           installation procedure will start copying the files.

           When the installation is complete you will be informed if it is
           necessary to reboot the computer.











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           Manual installation

           This section is of interest to those who wish to have more
           control over the setup process, or want to see the steps taken by
           the SETUP program.

           For simplification we will assume that the source drive/directory
           is A:\ and the destination drive/directory is C:\SM.  The
           following steps should be followed:

           o       Create the directory C:\SM if it doesn't already exist.

           o       Run the command:

                           COPY A:\*.EXE C:\SM

                   You may delete C:\SM\SETUP.EXE as it is not needed once
                   Source Minder is installed.

           o       In your AUTOEXEC.BAT file ensure that C:\SM is included
                   in your PATH.

           o       In your AUTOEXEC.BAT file make sure the following line
                   exists:

                           SET SMUSERNAME=<Put your user name here>

                   This step is optional, but is recommended for ease of use
                   of Source Minder.

           o       If you modified your AUTOEXEC.BAT file then reboot the
                   computer.



























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           Source Minder files

           Before we start looking at how to use Source Minder, you may be
           interested in knowing how and where Source Minder saves the
           different versions of your source files.

           For each source file that Source Minder has under version
           control, a separate Source Minder  file is maintained to store
           the information required to re-create all of the different
           versions of the source file.

           By default Source Minder files are stored in the sub-directory
           SMVCS within the current directory. The Source Minder file will
           have the same name as the original source file, but the third
           character of the extension will be replaced with a 'V'. Leading
           underbar characters will be added to the extension if necessary
           to produce a 3 character extension.

           For example, for a source file TEST.C, the Source Minder file
           would be SMVCS\TEST.C_V.  When using Source Minder, you will
           never need to specify the Source Minder filenames.

           To prevent accidental deletion, Source Minder files have the
           read-only file attribute set.  You will need to use the DOS
           command ATTRIB to remove the read-only attribute, if you wish to
           delete a Source Minder file.

           It is recommended that you back-up your Source Minder files on a
           regular basis.






























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           Basic operations

           In this chapter we will cover the basic Source Minder operations
           for a single source file.

           A file is put under Source Minder version control with the use of
           the PUT command. For example, if you have a source file TEST.C,
           then the following command:

                   PUT TEST.C

           will put TEST.C under Source Minder version control.

           After you have put the source file, you can actually delete the
           source file because the Source Minder file contains the
           information required to re-create it.

           To re-create the source file the command GET is used. In the
           current example after you have put the source file you can get
           the source file back again with the following command:

                   GET TEST.C

           The source file TEST.C is now re-created for you.

           At a later date you may need to modify TEST.C, either to fix bugs
           or to add new features to it. This new version of the file may be
           saved by putting it again with the following command:

                   PUT TEST.C

           This saves information on how to re-create this version of the
           source file together with the information on how to re-create the
           previous versions of the file that we put.

           Whenever a new version of a file is put, it is usually a good
           idea to add a description of what has changed since the previous
           version of the source file. Source Minder lets you add a
           description every time you put a new version by using the /C
           switch. For example, if you run the following command:

                   PUT /C TEST.C

           you will be prompted to enter a description. This may consist of
           multiple lines, and is terminated with a <Ctrl>+Z.














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           At a later date you will probably want to see a summary list of
           all saved versions of a particular source file. This is the
           purpose of the LOG command.  For example the command:

                   LOG TEST.C

           would produce output similar to:

                   File: TEST.C (single-user, text)
                       Branch: Main  Revision: 1
                       Put on Wed Sep 02 22:24:24 1992

                       Branch: Main  Revision: 2
                       Put on Thu Sep 03 19:27:16 1992

                       Branch: Main  Revision: 3
                       Put on Fri Sep 04 14:15:04 1992
                       > Supports new /X switch

           Every time a version of a file is put under Source Minder version
           control, a unique revision number is assigned to it.  These start
           at 1, and increment by 1 every time a version is put.

           In the output above we can see there are three different versions
           of the file under Source Minder version control.  The first
           having revision number 1, and the last having revision number 3.
           Using this information we can re-create any version of the file
           by specifying the revision number.  To specify a revision number
           with the GET command, the /R switch is used.  For example, to get
           the second version of the file we would use:

                   GET /R2 TEST.C

           If the /R switch is not used then GET will get the last version
           of the file that was put.


           To summarise:

           PUT - puts a new version of the source under Source Minder
           control.
           GET - gets a previously put version of the source file.
           LOG - displays a history log of previously put versions.
















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                            Source Minder User Manual


           Multiple source files

           In this chapter we will show how the Source Minder manages
           systems which consist of multiple source files, possibly in
           multiple directories.

           If a system consists of multiple source files, then we could put
           and get each individual source file.  Although this would work it
           is very tedious and error prone.  What is required, is some way
           of specifying all of the files that the system consists of so
           that a single put or get may be used.  Source Minder achieves
           this by the use of a file which contains a list of all of the
           source filenames in the system.  We call such a file a list file.
           A list file may have any name which doesn't clash with any of
           your source file names, but for reasons we will discover later
           the name SMVCS.LST is recommended.

           For example, if a system consists of the three source files:
           MAIN.C, SUBR.C and MAKEFILE, then the list file SMVCS.LST would
           contain:

                   # Source Minder list file for project x
                   MAIN.C     # Main entry point
                   SUBR.C     # Miscellaneous subroutines
                   MAKEFILE   # Makefile to make project x

           Note that within a list file, anything to the right of a '#' up
           to the end of the line is considered to be a comment and is
           ignored by Source Minder.

           You may have noticed that the system now consists of four source
           files, as SMVCS.LST is now part of the system.  You may include
           the source file SMVCS.LST explicitly within the list file, but if
           you don't then Source Minder will implicitly assume that the list
           file is part of the system anyway.

           When a list file is used as an argument to any of the Source
           Minder commands it should be proceeded by a '@' to indicate that
           it is a list file.  For example, the following command:

                   PUT @SMVCS.LST

           will put all of the files listed within SMVCS.LST including
           itself, ie:

                   SMVCS.LST
                   MAIN.C
                   SUBR.C
                   MAKEFILE

           If you do not specify any filenames or list filenames to PUT,
           then it will use as a default '@SMVCS.LST'.  Hence in the above
           example we could have run PUT without any arguments and achieved
           the same result.





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           Similarly you can use list files with GET.  The default if no
           filenames or list filenames are given is again '@SMVCS.LST'.

           Note that with GET, the list file is extracted from Source Minder
           before being used, rather than using the copy of the list file in
           the current directory.  This is because as a system evolves, some
           new source files will be added and others may be deleted, so that
           the list file will change during the life of a system. For
           example the command:

                   GET /R2

           will first get revision 2 of SMVCS.LST from the Source Minder,
           and then it will get revision 2 of every file listed within it.

           With LOG, if no filenames or list filenames are specified on the
           command line, then the default is to use 'SMVCS.LST'.  Note that
           '@SMVCS.LST' is not used as the default, as this would produce
           the history for every file, whereas you would normally want the
           history for the system.

           If the source is contained within multiple directories, then the
           pathnames of each source file need to be specified in the list
           file.  These pathnames must be relative to your current directory
           where you will be running the Source Minder commands from.  For
           example, if a system consists of a base directory containing the
           files: SMVCS.LST, MAIN.C, MAKEFILE, and a sub-directory called
           LIB with the source files: LIB.C, LIB.H and MAKEFILE, then the
           list file would need to contain:

                   MAIN.C
                   MAKEFILE
                   LIB\LIB.C
                   LIB\LIB.H
                   LIB\MAKEFILE

           When using the Source Minder for the above system, the current
           directory should be the base directory of the system as all of
           the pathnames are relative to that directory.  When putting or
           getting files you do not need to worry about creating any sub-
           directories as these will automatically be created for you.


           To Summarise:

           A list file contains a list of all of the files that the system
           consists of relative to the base directory for that system.
           By default PUT and GET will put or get every file listed within
           SMVCS.LST.
           By default LOG will show the history of the file SMVCS.LST.









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           Version labels

           So far we have discovered two different ways of specifying the
           version we are interested in when getting files. The first being
           to specify a revision number, the other by not specifying a
           revision number, in which case we get the last version that was
           put.

           There is a problem with revision numbers when used with systems
           which contain multiple source files.  As a system evolves, more
           and more source files are likely to be added to the system.  As
           revision numbers always start at 1, and increment by 1 each time
           the file is put, then those files that existed at the beginning
           will have a higher revision number than those files that have
           been added more recently.

           What is needed, is some sort of label which is the same for each
           file of the same version.  When we do a PUT, we can specify a
           label to add to the version using the /A switch.  For example:

                   PUT /A1.0

           will put the current version of all of the files listed in
           SMVCS.LST and the label '1.0' will be associated with it.  This
           label may then be used by the other commands, eg.

                   GET /V1.0

           will get the version for each file that has the label '1.0'
           associated with it.

           When using labels with the Source Minder commands, /A is used to
           add a new label, whereas /V is used to specify an already
           existing label.

           Version labels may be up to 16 characters in length. Any
           printable characters may be used. Case is not significant so the
           following two labels: "V2.0C" and "v2.0c" are considered to be
           identical.

           Version labels may be changed at a later time by the use of the
           SMLABEL command.  This allows you to add, delete and change
           version labels.  Refer to the reference manual for more details.
           It is possible for a single version to have more than one version
           label, however the same version label may not be used for more
           than one version.













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           Keywords

           When viewing a source file it is often useful to know what
           version of the file it is.  You could maintain this manually if
           you wish, changing the version number in each source file each
           time there is a new version of it.  Alternatively you can let
           Source Minder do this for you.  Each time you get a source file
           from version control, the Source Minder scans through the file
           looking for Source Minder keywords. When it finds such a keyword
           it will add the current value of the keyword to the output text.

           The keyword must be part of a keyword field.  A keyword field
           consists of 5 parts which must all be on the same line. These 5
           parts are:

                   A '$' indicating the start of a keyword field.
                   The keyword name. These are listed later on.
                   A ':' to separate the keyword name from the keyword
           value.
                   The keyword value.
                   A '$' indicating the end of the keyword field.

           The following are the recognised keywords:

                   Name    - The name of the source file.
                   Version - The version label.
                   Revision        - The revision number.
                   Branch  - The branch name. These are covered in a later
           chapter.

           For example if the source file SOURCE.C contains the following
           string:

                   "$Name: userman.txt $ $Version: 1.0a $"

           Then if you were to get version 1.0 of it, the above string would
           be expanded to:

                   "$Name: userman.txt $ $Version: 1.0a $

           If you PUT a version of the file which already has the keyword
           value part of the keyword field filled in, then this value will
           be replaced with the current value when you get the file.

           Given an executable file it is often useful to find out the
           versions of the source files used to create that executable.  To
           do this it is necessary to have keywords in each source file
           which are included in the executable file.  This would be done in
           C by including a line similar to the following in each C source
           file:

           static char szID[] = "$Name: userman.txt $ $Version: 1.0a $ $Revision$";

           The program IDENTIFY scans through the files specified as
           arguments to it, looking for Source Minder keywords, which are
           printed out when discovered.



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           Binary files

           Sometimes a system contains source files that are not in text
           format.  These are typically resource files, such as font or icon
           files.  Alternatively they could be word processor documents or
           executable files.  There is a danger (although normally very
           small) that within a binary file there is a sequence of bytes
           which look like a Source Minder keyword.  If this was to happen
           then GET would insert the value corresponding to the keyword. As
           binary files are in a fixed format, this would result in the
           binary file being corrupted.

           In addition, if the Source Minder knows which files are binary
           files, it can use a different compression technique which is more
           suited to binary files.

           When a file is first put, it is necessary to inform PUT if it is
           a binary file.  If a single file is being put, then this is done
           with the /E switch.  If a list file is being used, then each
           binary file within this list should be preceded by a '^'
           character.  For example if a system contains a source file MAIN.C
           and a binary file LOGO.ICO, then the list file would contain:

                   MAIN.C
                   ^LOGO.ICO

           When these files are re-created by GET, any keywords within
           MAIN.C will be expanded, but LOGO.ICO will not be checked for
           keywords.

           It is only necessary to specify that a file is binary on the
           first put, as this information is then stored by the Source
           Minder within the Source Minder file for future use.


























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           Branches

           Sometimes it is necessary to make modifications to versions of
           the software other than the last version.  For example you may
           have produced versions '1.0' and '2.0', but some existing version
           '1.0' users do not want to upgrade to version '2.0', but require
           some modifications to version '1.0'.  This would require the
           production of a '1.1' version, and perhaps '1.2' and so on at a
           later time.  The versions '1.1', '1.2', ... is considered to be a
           branch off the main development sequence which is '1.0', '2.0',
           ...

           Source Minder supports branching, with each branch given a unique
           name for easy reference.  The main development sequence is given
           the branch name "Main".  When you put or get a file you can
           specify which branch the version belongs to.  If no branch name
           is specified when putting a version, it is put on the same branch
           as the previously put version.

           To create a new branch, you must specify both the existing
           version you are branching from, and the name of the branch you
           are creating.   The existing version that you are branching from
           may be specified either by a revision number or by a version
           label.  When specifying branches with the Source Minder commands,
           /H is used to add a new branch, whereas /B is used to specify an
           existing branch.  In the above example, to create a new branch
           for version '1.1', you would  use the following command:

                   PUT /HVer1Mods /V1.0 /A1.1

           With GET you can get the last version on a branch just by
           specifying the branch name with the /B switch.  For example:

                   GET /BVer1Mods

           will get the last version on the branch named 'Ver1Mods'.

           By default LOG will list information about all of the versions
           regardless of which branch they are on, but the different
           branches will be indented to make viewing the versions easier.
           The /B switch may be used with LOG to show information on the
           versions of a single branch only. For example:

                   LOG /BVer1Mods

           will only show the versions on the branch named 'Ver1Mods'.













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           Configuration

           This chapter looks at how we can set up some default switches for
           the Source Minder commands.  This will be particularly helpful
           when we consider multi-user support in the next chapter.

           When versions are put it is often useful to know who put them.  A
           users name may be specified by using the /N switch followed by
           the users name.  Alternatively the users name may be set in the
           'SMUSERNAME' environment variable.  If you specified a users name
           when installing Source Minder, then this will be set up ready for
           you.  The user name specified with the /N switch will over-ride
           the user name specified in the environment variable.

           Each command checks the file 'SMVCS.CFG' in the current directory
           before it processes its command line arguments.  The 'SMVCS.CFG'
           can contain the default switches you wish to use with each of the
           commands.  As the file is read from the current directory, you
           can have different defaults for each system you are working on as
           long as each system resides in a different directory.

           SMVCS.CFG is a text file which may be edited with any text
           editor.  Anything from a '#' to the end of the line is considered
           to be a comment.  If a line starts with the name of a command
           followed by a ':', then the switches on the rest of the line will
           be used for the specified command only.  If the line doesn't
           start with a command name, then the switches on the line will be
           used with all Source Minder commands.

           For example, if SMVCS.CFG contained the following parameters:

                   /DC:\SMVCS\PROJECTX
                   PUT: /C /M
                   SMCHECK: /Q

           then the /D switch would apply to all Source Minder commands.  In
           addition PUT would have the two extra switches /C and /M, and
           SMCHECK would have the extra switch /Q.





















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           Multi-user support

           Systems which are developed by more than one person have special
           requirements.  Access to the source files needs to be controlled
           such that two different developers cannot modify the same version
           of a source file at the same time.  It is also useful to know
           which developers made which changes to the source files.  Source
           Minder can provide this management.

           Source Minder has two modes of operation; single-user and multi-
           user.  So far we have only covered the single-user mode of
           operation which does not impose any restrictions on the putting
           of files. Multi-user mode is the same as single-user, except a
           version of a source file may not be put back under Source Minder
           control, unless it has already been locked out by the same user.
           This prevents more than one developer from modifying the same
           version of the file.

           Source Minder needs to know the name of the user.  This may
           either be specified by using the /N switch to the commands, or
           via the environment variable 'SMUSERNAME'. Any name specified by
           the /N switch will override the name in the environment variable.
           It is recommended that you use the environment variable, unless a
           lot of users use the same machine.

           When a file is put for the first time, the /M switch may be used
           to mark the file as operating in multi-user mode.  If an attempt
           is made to put the file again without locking it first, then the
           PUT command will report that the file is not locked.

           In order to modify the file a user must first lock the file out.
           This is achieved using the /L switch with the GET command.  By
           default the Source Minder files are kept within the SMVCS sub-
           directory of the current directory.  However if multiple users
           need access to the Source Minder files, then they will probably
           be located on a central file server.  A different directory for
           the Source Minder files may be used by the use of the /D switch.
           For example:

                   GET /L /DS:\SMPROJ1 /V1.0 /NJoeBloggs SOURCE.C

           Would get version 1.0 of the source file SOURCE.C from the
           directory S:\SMPROJ1.  This version will now be marked as being
           locked out by 'JoeBloggs'.  If another user comes along and tries
           to lock out the same version, then they will be informed that
           'JoeBloggs' is currently modifying the version.

           If  the user name has been set in the 'SMVCSNAME' environment
           variable, then the /N switch may be dropped.  To save typing the
           /D switch every time it is recommended that you set it up in the
           SMVCS.CFG file in the current directory.  This means that the
           previous command line could be shortened to:

                   GET /L /V1.0 SOURCE.C





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           When you have finished with the source file, you can put it back
           as normal.  It is then available for someone else to lock out and
           modify.  Alternatively if you wish to put the file back and lock
           it out again for further modifications, then the /L switch may be
           used with the PUT command to put the file back and to lock it out
           again in one operation.

           If you lock out a file which is not at the end of a branch, then
           when you put the file back a new branch will need to be created.
           In this case it is necessary to specify the name of the branch
           you are creating with the /H switch.  For example,

                   PUT /V1.3 /A1.3A /HCustXSpecial SOURCE.C

           will put SOURCE.C back with a version label of "1.3A" on a new
           branch called "CustXSpecial", and the branch will start from
           below the version with the version label "1.3".

           It is recommended that for multi-user projects you set your
           SMVCS.CFG file up as follows:

                   /D<Directory containing Source Manager files>
                   PUT: /C /M

           The /C switch for PUT specifies that a description will be
           requested each time a put is down.  The /M switch for PUT ensures
           that whenever a new file is put, that it will be treated as a
           multi-user file.































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           Multi-user management policy

           This chapter looks at some of the different polices that a team
           leader could use in ensuring that multiple developers all use the
           Source Minder in a consistent manner.

           In producing a new version, its is important to have some sort of
           policy as to how developers update the source files.  It goes
           without saying, that source files should be locked out for the
           shortest time possible.

           There are two different management policies that can be used for
           the production of a new version from an existing version.  In the
           following we will assume that we are producing a version with
           label "1.1" from a version with label "1.0".  In addition we will
           assume for clarity that there is only the one branch.  If there
           were more than one branch, then the branch name would need to be
           specified where appropriate.  It is also assumed that the user
           name has been set up in the SMUSERNAME environment variable, and
           that SMVCS.CFG contains the directory for the Source Minder
           files, and has the /M and /C switches set for the PUT command.

           Promotion at end

           To get the current source, a developer would use:

                   GET

           which would get the very last copy of all of the source files.

           Then the developer would need to lock out the files that he is
           going to modifying using:

                   GET /L [files...]

           When these files have been modified they should be put back with

                   PUT [files...]

           When each member of the team has completed his/her modifications,
           the team leader can then assign the new label to the source using
           the following command:

                   SMLABEL /A1.1

           Refer to the reference manual for more details on SMLABEL.













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           Promotion at the start

           The team leader first adds the new version label to the existing
           version, using the command:

                   SMLABEL /A1.1 /V1.0

           To get the current source, a developer would use:

                   GET /V1.1

           which would get version "1.1" of all of the source files.

           Then the developer would need to lock out the files that he is
           going to modifying using:

                   GET /L /V1.1 [files...]

           When these files have been modified they should be put back with

                   PUT /A1.1 /F [files...]

           This associates the version label "1.1" with the files just put
           back.  The /F switch causes any existing use of the version label
           to be forgotten.  (Remember that a version label can only apply
           to a single version).

































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           Other uses

           In this final chapter, we look at some alternative uses that
           Source Minder could be used for.

           Startup Configuration

           Most users have different sets of AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
           files, suited for different configuration requirements.  Instead
           of having all of the different versions of these files hanging
           around, they could be put under Source Minder control.

           To do this,  change to C:\, and create a SMVCS.LST which contains
           the two filenames: AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.  Then for each
           pair of configuration files, copy them to AUTOEXEC.BAT and
           CONFIG.SYS.  Then run the PUT command using the /A switch
           specifying an easy to remember mnemonic for this particular
           configuration.  It is also a good idea to use the /C switch so
           you can specify a longer description of the configuration files.

           To change the configuration, run the command GET using the /V
           switch to specify the mnemonic you used when you put the
           configuration files.  The LOG command can be used to show a list
           of all the different configurations you have available.

           Using SMDIFF you can check the differences between different
           configurations.  SMDIFF can also be used after you have installed
           a new program to check if it has changed your configuration
           files, and if so, what changes have been made.

           File Modification Checker

           Source Minder can be used to check to see if any modifications
           have been made to specified files on your system.  This may be
           suitable to make sure that they have not recently been infected
           by a virus (note that this is not a substitute for a virus
           checking package), or tampered with by another user.  To do this
           it is necessary to create a list file which contains all of the
           files on your system that you wish to protect.  The PUT command
           should then be run using this list file.  Note that this could
           take up a lot of disk space, as a copy of each file is
           effectively taken.  To check if any files have changed, you can
           then run SMCHECK /C /S, which will list out all of the files that
           have changed.  Any file may be restored to its original state
           using the GET command.


           Finally do not forget that Source Minder can be used to archive
           any type of file, including databases, spreadsheets and word
           processor documents.









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