CVS keyword list

$Author$

     The login name of the user who checked in the revision.

$Date$

     The date and time (UTC) the revision was checked in.

$Header$

     A standard header containing the full pathname of the RCS file,
     the revision number, the date (UTC), the author, the state, and
     the locker (if locked).  Files will normally never be locked when
     you use CVS.

$Id$

     Same as `$Header$', except that the RCS filename is without a path.

$Name$

     Tag name used to check out this file.

$Locker$

     The login name of the user who locked the revision (empty if not
     locked, and thus almost always useless when you are using CVS).

$Log$

     The log message supplied during commit, preceded by a header
     containing the RCS filename, the revision number, the author, and
     the date (UTC).  Existing log messages are *not* replaced.
     Instead, the new log message is inserted after `$Log:...$'.  Each
     new line is prefixed with the same string which precedes the
     `$Log' keyword.  For example, if the file contains

            /* Here is what people have been up to:
             *
             * $Log: frob.c,v $
             * Revision 1.1  1997/01/03 14:23:51  joe
             * Add the superfrobnicate option
             *
             */

     then additional lines which are added when expanding the `$Log'
     keyword will be preceded by `   * '.  Unlike previous versions of
     CVS and RCS, the "comment leader" from the RCS file is not used.
     The `$Log' keyword is useful for accumulating a complete change
     log in a source file, but for several reasons it can be
     problematic.  *Note Log keyword::.

$RCSfile$

     The name of the RCS file without a path.

$Revision$

     The revision number assigned to the revision.

$Source$

     The full pathname of the RCS file.

$State$

     The state assigned to the revision.  States can be assigned with
     `cvs admin -s'--see *Note admin options::.

Using keywords

To include a keyword string you simply include the relevant text string, such as $Id$, inside the file, and commit the file. CVS will automatically expand the string as part of the commit operation.

It is common to embed the $Id$ string in the source files so that it gets passed through to generated files. For example, if you are managing computer program source code, you might include a variable which is initialized to contain that string. Or some C compilers may provide a #pragma ident directive. Or a document management system might provide a way to pass a string through to generated files.

The ident command (which is part of the RCS package) can be used to extract keywords and their values from a file. This can be handy for text files, but it is even more useful for extracting keywords from binary files.

     $ ident samp.c
     samp.c:
          $Id: samp.c,v 1.5 1993/10/19 14:57:32 ceder Exp $
     $ gcc samp.c
     $ ident a.out
     a.out:
          $Id: samp.c,v 1.5 1993/10/19 14:57:32 ceder Exp $