Design, implementation, and evaluation of a Revision Control System

  • Authors:
  • Walter F. Tichy

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • ICSE '82 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Software engineering
  • Year:
  • 1982

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Abstract

The Revision Control System (RCS) is a software tool that helps in managing multiple revisions of text. RCS automates the storing, retrieval, logging, identification, and merging of revisions, and provides access control. It is useful for text that is revised frequently, for example programs and documentation. This paper presents the design and implementation of RCS. Both design and implementation are evaluated by contrasting RCS with SCCS, a similar system. SCCS is implemented with forward, merged deltas, while RCS uses reverse, separate deltas. (Deltas are the differences between successive revisions.) It is shown that the latter technique improves run-time efficiency, while requiring almost no extra space.