I seem to have stopped updating the -dev version

What you describe is how it's supposed to work.

Can you include links to projects and release nodes where you don't think this is happening? Can you include specifics about "As I commit the bug fixes," -- what are you doing? are you using CLI or a GUI? what CLI commands? what GUI?

Thanks,
-Derek

http://drupal.org/handbook/cvs/introduction#branches-and-tags
http://drupal.org/handbook/cvs/branches-and-tags/contributions
http://drupal.org/handbook/cvs/releases/types

5.x-2.0 is an official release, from a tag.
5.x-1.x-dev is a snapshot release, from a branch.

CVS won't let you commit changes "to a tag". You can only commit changes to a branch.

If you want the full picture, you should listen to the audio for this:

http://badcamp07.org/07/sessions/how-develop-and-maintain-your-drupal-co...

which has nice notes about it and time references here:

http://drupal.org/node/197823

Good luck,
-Derek

Can you be specific with release nodes and branch/tag names? Thanks.

All of these commits are into the HEAD branch. The release node you're pointing to (5.x-1.x-dev) is pointing to the DRUPAL-5 branch. So, your changes aren't showing up in that release node, since you're committing to a different branch. Notice that the "glosary-HEAD" version is being updated:

http://drupal.org/node/94638
glossary HEAD
Nightly development snapshot from CVS branch: HEAD
Download: glossary-HEAD.tar.gz
Size: 26.77 KB
md5_file hash: 47100482fcc8f54cdb398f826cb6192d
First released: March 6, 2005 - 12:15
Last updated: December 4, 2007 - 16:05
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Your DRUPAL-5--1-0 and DRUPAL-5--1-1 tags were made relative to HEAD, as well, so that's why you're getting the latest changes in those releases.

It seems you've been treating HEAD as your DRUPAL-5 branch, without realizing it. Always run "cvs diff" and "cvs status" on your workspace before you commit, so you're sure you're committing the changes you think you're committing to the branch you're aiming for. ;)

What you need to do now is take the latest revisions of all the files in a HEAD workspace, copy them into a workspace you checked out from the DRUPAL-5 branch, and commit them all with a message like "syncing DRUPAL-5 branch with latest code from 5.x-1.1 in HEAD". After that, bug fixes for 5.x-1.x-dev go in both DRUPAL-5 and HEAD. You can start porting to D6 in HEAD if you wish, or add new features for a 5.x-2.* series in HEAD. See http://drupal.org/node/17570#HEAD for suggestions on how to use the HEAD branch of your project.

p.s. with your newfound enlightenment, please edit the existing CVS handbook pages to help clarify the parts that didn't make sense, or add emphasis on the parts you missed. it's hard for me to write the best docs for this, since i understand it all, so my writing about it makes sense to me. ;) you're in the unique, valuable position of a) learning how it really is, and b) having just lived through not getting it thanks to less-than-fully-clear docs. act now while the moment is fresh! if you do that, my time spent on this issue will not have been in vain. thanks.

Glossary was built on my machine using CVS checkout; the others are homegrown, so they were born on my machine. Do I need to check out Glossary again? All my changes have been committed from the checked out version. Or do I need to do something different, like create a new branch or tag? I'm sorry for being so dense - I guess I need concrete examples.

What's happening is your local checkout is from HEAD. You need a checkout from both HEAD and DRUPAL-5 if you want to be bugfixing the stable 5.x-1.* series, and doing anything else (new features for 5.x-2.*, porting to D6, etc).

disclaimer: i never use CVS GUIs, so the details of the commands below will vary...

a) everything in CVS always has a HEAD branch, no matter what.

b) every other branch (DRUPAL-5, DRUPAL-5--2, DRUPAL-6--1, etc) must be created manually. let me explain the process below, after a few more things are clear...

c) most projects had a DRUPAL-5 branch for a long time, many of those predate the release system. in that case, you obviously don't have to create the branch yourself, you just have to start using it.

d) every directory you checkout from CVS remembers the branch it was checked out from (via a feature CVS calls the "sticky tag" for that directory). so, when you're doing CVS operations in a given directory, you have to always be conscious of what branch the directory is pointing to, so your actions achieve the desired outcome. cvs status tells you this, which is why it's a good idea to run it regularly. for example, here's the output on "signup.module" from a directory checked out from DRUPAL-5:

dww% cvs status signup.module
===================================================================
File: signup.module     Status: Up-to-date

   Working revision:    1.74.2.32
   Repository revision: 1.74.2.32       /cvs/drupal-contrib/contributions/modules/signup/signup.module,v
   Commit Identifier:   3f2c47090bff4567
   Sticky Tag:          DRUPAL-5 (branch: 1.74.2)
   Sticky Date:         (none)
   Sticky Options:      (none)

and here's what it looks like for a HEAD workspace:

dww% cvs status signup.module 
===================================================================
File: signup.module     Status: Up-to-date

   Working revision:    1.121
   Repository revision: 1.121   /cvs/drupal-contrib/contributions/modules/signup/signup.module,v
   Commit Identifier:   32b5475477474567
   Sticky Tag:          (none)
   Sticky Date:         (none)
   Sticky Options:      (none)

Always keep your eye on that "Sticky Tag" line. I have no idea how each GUI provides or presents this information, but it's fundamental to CVS, so it must be possible.

e) if you're working with glossary, and you're going to be working on both 5.x-1.x-dev stuff, and something else (new features in HEAD or porting to D6), you should probably just checkout 2 separate copies, into separate locations -- one checkout from the DRUPAL-5 branch for the stable 5.x-1.* bugfixing, and another from HEAD to work on "the new thing" (whatever that is for you right now). to do so:

cvs -d:pserver:[blah,blah] co -r DRUPAL-5 -d modules/glossary.5 contributions/modules/glossary
cvs -d:pserver:[blah,blah] co -d modules/glossary.head contributions/modules/glossary

The first command says "get me the code from the 'DRUPAL-5' branch and put it in 'modules/glossary.5'". The second, since it doesn't specify -r to request a specific revision or branch, says "get me the code from HEAD and put it in 'modules/glossary.head'". The specific directory structure that makes sense for you might vary. Perhaps you've got a totally separate checkout of core for each version you're trying to support, and you're working on your own contrib modules inside sites/all/modules for each checkout of core. whatever. that doesn't matter. what does is what I said about about sticky tags on directories.

So, let's look at creating branches, now that the other stuff makes sense...

In general, the best way to make a new branch is to start from a checkout of your workspace from HEAD, and create the new branch with the name that matches what you're doing to your code. to create a new branch, you use the cvs tag -b command. yes, it's a little confusing, since as far as CVS is concerned, a branch is a special case tag -- it'd be nicer if the command was just called cvs branch but oh well. Again, the name to use depends on what you're doing based on http://drupal.org/node/17570#HEAD -- let's say you're adding new features for 5.x-2.*. You're adding new features to HEAD, and making 5.x-2.* official releases (5.x-2.0, 5.x-2.1, etc) directly from HEAD. You've got a 5.x-2.x-dev development snapshot pointing to HEAD, too. All is happy. Then, you want to start porting to D6 core. So, you want to create a new branch for the 5.x-2.* stuff (so you can continue working on that) independent of your D6 porting changes in HEAD. So, at this point, you do the following:

cd modules/foo
cvs update -A            # makes sure your workspace has all the latest code from HEAD (clears the sticky tag, etc)
cvs tag -b DRUPAL-5--2    # creates a new branch
cvs update -r DRUPAL-5--2  # sets the sticky tag in this workspace to the new branch

now you're happy, and your 5.x-2.* code is safely on its own branch. you can continue to make improvements to that code, while starting to port to D6 in HEAD.

however, at this point, the next step is that you should edit your 5.x-2.x-dev release node and move the CVS branch it's pointing to from "HEAD" to "DRUPAL-5--2". That way, the 5.x-2.x-dev snapshots will continue to be correct, and everyone will know what's going on.

Finally, you're ready to start working on the D6 port in HEAD:

cd modules
cvs -d[blah] co -d foo.head contributions/modules/foo
cd foo.head
[port to D6]
cvs diff   # make sure i'm changing what i think i'm changing
cvs status # make sure this is the right directory -- I better not see any sticky tags...
cvs commit -m "#xxxxxx ported foo.module to D6 core"
...

Of course, if the foo module is big and complex, you might want to commit the D6 porting in chucks as you finish certain parts of it (e.g. "ported to D6 menu API", "ported to D6 FAPI", etc, etc).

At this point, you could consider making a new release node pointing to HEAD (which will now be available as an option, since you moved the 5.x-2.x-dev node to point to your new DRUPAL-5--2 branch), which is called "6.x-1.x-dev". Or, if you like to have lots of branches, or immediately plan to start adding new features in a 6.x-2.* series, you could make a DRUPAL-6--1 branch for your 6.x-1.* code, and leave HEAD for your new-feature 6.x-2.* series...

hope that's all clear now. let me know if there are any other gaps in your understanding and i'll fill them in. then, i eagerly await seeing the edits to the CVS handbooks. ;)

cheers,
-derek

Derek, you continue to astound me (and I'm sure most everyone else who follows these issues) with your seemingly limitless energy for providing detailed, helpful, and specific explanations. I stand in awe.

@nancyw: I can't speak to the best way of doing this in Tortoise, but here's how I sometimes do it. If I am unsure about what I'm working with, I often maneuver into a directory (that's under revision control) and right click on a file. Choose CVS and then History. The history (revision comments) for the file will be displayed, but more importantly, the Sticky Tag will also be displayed a few lines down from the top. For a HEAD checkout, this will be (None). I've attached a screenshot that I made while looking at the CVS->History of update.php.

@nedjo: THANKS! It's awfully nice to get appreciation like this. ;)

@nancyw: again, the newer files in your po directory were committed to HEAD, not DRUPAL-5. i'm not sure why you're surprised by this.

dww% cvs log po/de_44.po
RCS file: /cvs/drupal-contrib/contributions/modules/glossary/po/de_44.po,v
Working file: po/de_44.po
head: 1.1
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
    DRUPAL-5--1-1: 1.1
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 1; selected revisions: 1
description:
----------------------------
revision 1.1
date: 2007-12-01 17:45:09 +0000;  author: nancyw;  state: Exp;  commitid: 36ca47
519da44567;
#159478 - German translation

side note: just because the file gets upload to the issue queue as "de_44.po", doesn't mean that's what it should be called in your po folder. ;) the files are just supposed to have the language code (de.po). you almost always have to rename the things you download from the issue queue before you can directly commit them.

nancyw, with TortoiseCVS right click, select the CVS submenu, then click "Update Special" and it'll let you choose which tag you want to check out.

nancyw: I already said how you can repay me: improve the docs. for extra credit: help enlighten others who are confused by helping with the support issues... ;)