sccschangeset(5) File Formats sccschangeset(5)

sccschangeset - format of an SCCS changeset file

An SCCS changeset file is an ASCII file consisting of a list of entries that describe the state of a project-set under control of SCCSv6 or later.

The changeset file itself is under control of SCCS. SCCS works directly on the s.changeset file. There is no need to check out the related file content, as the deltas can be consructed without explicitely running the diff(1) program.

The following terms are used in this documentation:

A set of one or more files under control of SCCS that form a project.
A directory that is above all files from the related project set. This directory holds a directory .sccs with project set related meta data such as the changeset file.
A single set of changes into the repository for a project set.
The person who formed a commit set.
The email address used to identify a committer.

Each entry in the changeset file describes the new state of a single file after it was modified, renamed, removed or restored in a related commit set.

Each entry in the changeset file ends in a newline character. If the file name from the related file contains a newline character, additional newlines may be in the related entry.

Each entry in the changeset file consists of six fields that are separated by a vertical line character (ASCII 0x7C). The vertical line character may not be part of the email address, it however may appear in the path name.

The following fields appear in the order of the following list:


A unified pseudo random number that is used to help to identify single files across renames during the lifetime of the sccs history. The unified random number is unique to any file from the project set. See sccsfile(5) for a detailed description of the unified pseudo random number.

The minimal length for the pseudo random number is thirteen hexadecimal characters. If the number could be represented with less digits, it is left filled with zeroes. This allows to have a unique length for this number until Mar 31 10:55:07 2155 GMT.

The file specific SID that was used for the file mentioned in that line of the changeset.
The SID specific checksum for the related file. See sccsfile(5) for a detailed description of the SID specific checksums for a file.
A decimal number representing the number of bytes in the path name not including the final newline character.
The path name of the related file after the commit has been applied. The path name holds a relative path as seen from the project set home directory. As the path name is the last member in the lines of a changeset file, it may contain the vertical line character (ASCII 0x7C).

A typical entry in the changeset file may look like:


0e31666e43286|1.3|45206|15|some/dir/file.c

sccs(1), sccs-admin(1), sccs-cdc(1), sccs-comb(1), sccs-cvt(1), sccs-delta(1), sccs-get(1), sccs-help(1), sccs-log(1), sccs-prs(1), sccs-prt(1), sccs-rmdel(1), sccs-sact(1), sccs-sccsdiff(1), sccs-unget(1), sccs-val(1), bdiff(1), diff(1), what(1), sccsfile(5).

2015/02/25 Joerg Schilling