6.9 SCCS Version Differences

This section outlines some of the ways in which various versions of sccs differ from each other and therefore sometimes from cssc.

6.9.1 Binary file support and line lengths

The various versions of sccs differ in their level of support for binary files (see Binary File Support), and in the maximum line length that they will support (see Maximum Line Length.

6.9.2 sccsdiff

There are some small variations in the way that the several versions of sccsdiff behave. These are outlined in the table below :-

Solaris 8

Prints a separator line between the diff output for each s-file. This separator is output before the first set of diff output, even if only one s-file has been named on the command line.

Solaris 2.6 and many other versions of Unix

Does not print a separator.

6.9.3 admin

There are a few differences in the behaviour of the admin command across the various SCCS Implementations :-

The -n option

Some versions of Dynix do not allow the use of the -n option without the -i option. A workaround is to use -n -i/dev/null instead.

Binary file support

Most implementations of sccs do not support the encoding of binary files, either automatically or by the use of the -b option to admin. See Binary File Support, for more information.

Executable file support

The SCO OpenServer implementation of sccs provides an x flag, which turns on the executable bits of the mode of the g-file when it is created. Other versions of sccs do not have this feature. While csssc provides this feature also, its use is not recommended. The prt -f command does not indicate the value of the x flag.

Initial delta

The -r option is used to specify the release of the initial delta. Some implementations of sccs allow this to be used to specify more components of a sid than just the release number. The cssc version of admin allows this usage but issues a warning message. If the -r option is used to specify a non-trunk sid (that is, a sid with more than two components), this is allowed but some of the other tools in the cssc suite will not work correctly on the resulting file.

6.9.4 prt

If the “encoded” flag is set, some versions of prt (but not the cssc version) omit a newline in the output and so the next thing follows immediately on the same line.

6.9.5 get

Sun Solaris 8 features a y flag. If the y flag is set in the sccs file, only the specified sccs keywords will be expanded in the gotten file (assuming that the -k and -e options are not used).

The get command on SCO OpenServer honours the setting of the x flag. This is described above.

For a discussion of the interoperability of cssc with other sccs implementations, see Interoperability. For a description of the x and y flags, see Flags.