Sharing Files via the web

[me at mattgillen.net (Matthew Gillen)]

John Abreau wrote:
> I found some Windows CVS clients, but as I understand it, CVS allows
> multiple users to check out a document. Something more like RCS would
> suit my needs better, but I've had no luck finding a Windows RCS client.
> 
> What I'm looking for:
> 
>> The file would have to be available to only one person at a time
>> (all others could access it in read-only format), and each person
>> on the list above would need read/write privileges.  Can you suggest
>> a way to address this that will be easy for all involved, yet prevent
>> errors due to multiple document versions?
> 
> I can deploy this via Samba or via a web server; either is fine.
> Is anyone familiar with a file sharing system that can do this?
> 
> If CVS were able to lock files so only one person could check a given
> file out at a time, that would solve the problem. Is there a way to
> make CVS do that?

Yes, there is.
http://ximbiot.com/cvs/manual/cvs-1.11.21/cvs_10.html#SEC88

Basically, things get checked out read-only, and when you want to edit the
file, you have to 'cvs edit filename' first, which tells the CVS repository
that you're currently editing the file and switches your local copy to
read-write.  A commit or 'unedit' command will then switch it back to
read-only (and of course notify the repository that you're done).

I'm not sure you can administratively prevent more than one person at a time
from being in the 'edit' list, but you can at least be notified that someone
else currently in the 'edit' list.

After all that, I would recommend (for a variety of reasons) that you forget
about CVS and use Subversion.  It's all-around better (unless you have a
particular front-end, such as Eclipse, that has really snazzy CVS
integration and really broken SVN integration).  Here's the section in the
subversion manual that talks about serializing access to files:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.advanced.locking.html

HTH,
Matt