<div id="Structure"></div>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: [[cvs: CVS's exit status#CVS&rsquo;s exit status|Exit status]], Up: [[cvs: Guide to CVS commands#Guide to CVS commands|CVS commands]] &nbsp; |[[cvs: Index#SEC_Contents|Contents]]||[[cvs: Index#Index|Index]]|</p>
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<div id="Overall-structure-of-CVS-commands"></div>
=== Overall structure of CVS commands ===
<div id="index-Structure"></div>
<div id="index-CVS-command-structure"></div>
<div id="index-Command-structure"></div>
<div id="index-Format-of-CVS-commands"></div>

The overall format of all <small>CVS</small> commands is:

<div class="example" style="margin-left: 3.2em">
 cvs <nowiki>[</nowiki> cvs_options <nowiki>]</nowiki> cvs_command <nowiki>[</nowiki> command_options <nowiki>]</nowiki> <nowiki>[</nowiki> command_args <nowiki>]</nowiki>
</div>

;<code>cvs</code>
: The name of the <small>CVS</small> program.

;<code>cvs_options</code>
: Some options that affect all sub-commands of <small>CVS</small>.  These are described below.

;<code>cvs_command</code>
: One of several different sub-commands.  Some of the commands have aliases that can be used instead; those aliases are noted in the reference manual for that command.  There are only two situations where you may omit &lsquo;<code>cvs_command</code>&rsquo;: &lsquo;<code>cvs -H</code>&rsquo; elicits a list of available commands, and &lsquo;<code>cvs -v</code>&rsquo; displays version information on <small>CVS</small> itself.

;<code>command_options</code>
: Options that are specific for the command.

;<code>command_args</code>
: Arguments to the commands.

There is unfortunately some confusion between
<code>cvs_options</code> and <code>command_options</code>.
&lsquo;<code>-l</code>&rsquo;, when given as a <code>cvs_option</code>, only
affects some of the commands.  When it is given as a
<code>command_option</code> is has a different meaning, and
is accepted by more commands.  In other words, do not
take the above categorization too seriously.  Look at
the documentation instead.

This document was generated on <i>a sunny day</i> using [http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/ <i>texi2html</i>].
