Source Code Control System (SCCS)

SCCS is a version control system. It is similar to RCS in terms of functionality (for example, it operates on one file at a time). As such, we'd generally recommend a more powerful system, such as CVS, even for beginners.

One popular feature that SCCS and CVS have that RCS does not is the ability to print each line of a file along with the version number which made the most recent modification to that line. (For CVS, the command is "cvs annotate").

SCCS and the Year 2000

• SCCS uses two digit years. The standard fix for this is to treat two digit years as being in the range of 1969-2068 (we'll call this the "X/Open fix").
• MySC implements the X/Open fix.
• CSSC version 0.04-pl0 implements the X/Open fix (and contains test cases so that dates beyond 2000 should continue to work). Older versions have bugs in this area.
• For SunOS and Solaris, the first Y2K-compliant SCCS is shipped with Solaris 7 and older versions need a patch, according to "Does Sun see any problems with the source code control system (SCCS)?", Year 2000 Frequently Asked Questions, Sun Microsystems.

SCCS Standards

There is a formal standard for the SCCS command line as part of the Single Unix Specification (see below for details).

We're not aware of any formal standards for the file format that SCCS uses to store version histories although System V and derived systems will often have a "sccsfile" manpage which documents the file format.

Where to Get Source Code Control System (SCCS):

• The original (and still most widely used) version of SCCS is part of Unix and is not free.

More Information:

• See the MySC page from Ross Ridge, the author.

Mailing Lists and Newsgroups:

• The newsgroup for SCCS (and other version control systems) is comp.software.config-mgmt.
• There is a mailing list for the CSSC implementation; to subscribe send mail to cssc-users-request@gnu.org