Make a release from an already released version with CVS

Question

I'm trying to put in place a way to permit to developers to be able to sometimes apply a patch on an already delivered version of an application.

before any delivery to a pre-production env we've to release our app. code versioning system is CVS here's the use case :

• date 1 : we release the application (with maven) which will be deployed on the server (webapp)
• date 2 : on (head) there had been commits
• date 3 : a bug appears on the pre-production env and we've to deliver a patch, the problem is that we already committed some unfinished features they must not appear on the pre-production env.

I proposed to checkout the code from the already released version (the one of date 1), make the fix and then release from that version.

My question : Is it possible? what will happen to head?

Answer 1

You can do it as follow :

Suppose that the your tag is 1.0

1 - create a new branch (named for example 1.0-hotfix) from the tag of release (1.0 )

2 - checkout the new branch in another local directory

3 - Make changes to your source, commit and release !

4 - finally merge the branch into HEAD

Answer 2

For maintenance and patches you need to be able to work on parallel versions. Usually this is done with the concept of branches, cvs support this feature.

Maintenance branch are very common to apply patch to older versions.

Nothing will happen to head.

While cvs or svn support branches, the implementation in DVCS such as git is much better. Switching to a DVCS would save you a lot of time in the long run.