This package contains functions to extract informations from the
history of a VCS file.

Generally, RCS based systems such as VCS or HMS store a few
information with each revision. These information are generally
'Author', 'date', 'branches', 'log'. On top of the common
informations, you can specify your own set of information (for
instance, 'merged from', 'bug fixed') according to the policies
defined on your work place.

You can perform various queries related to the history such as :

* Sort revisions: it will return a pair of revisions sorted by
age. Oldest and child. But it will return an error if these two
versions are not parents of each others.

* List a genealogy of versions between 2 revisions of a file. This will
take into account the branches. For instance between 1.1 and 1.2.1.2,
it will return 1.1 1.2 1.2.1.1 1.2.1.2), but between 1.3 and 1.2.1.2
it will return an error, since these two versions are not parents of
each others.

* Build a cumulated log of several revisions. I.e a log description of
all changes made to several consecutive versions (which is handy to
build a log of a merge). This function will return an if these two
versions are not parents of each others.

Furthermore, this class can be used with a GUI by using
Puppet::VcsTools::History.


This package was tested with HMS and RCS. It should work for all RCS
based systems.

I'd like people who actually use this module for their application to
drop me a short note about what they're using this module for. 

Suggested DSLI line:

VcsTools::History bdpO  Perl class to manage a VCS history   DDUMONT

This module was written with perl5.005. 

See the embedded documentation in the module for more details.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Note that this module is in beta state. Its interface may change (but
I hope not).

Legal mumbo jumbo:

 Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Dominique Dumont. All rights reserved.
 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
 THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 

 - Dominique Dumont
   dominique_dumont@grenoble.hp.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
INSTALLATION

   	 gunzip -c <dist_file>.tar.gz | tar xvf -
   	 cd <dist_directory>
   	 perl Makefile.PL
   	 make test          
   	 make install

