IDENT(1)                                                              IDENT(1)



NAME
       ident - identify RCS keyword strings in files

SYNOPSIS
       ident [ -q ] [ -V ] [ file ... ]

DESCRIPTION
       ident searches for all instances of the pattern $keyword: text $ in the
       named files or, if no files are named, the standard input.

       These patterns are normally inserted automatically by the  RCS  command
       co(1), but can also be inserted manually.  The option -q suppresses the
       warning given if there are no patterns in a file.  The option -V prints
       ident's version number.

       ident works on text files as well as object files and dumps.  For exam-
       ple, if the C program in f.c contains

              #include <stdio.h>
              static char const rcsid[] =
                "$Id: f.c,v  $";
              int main() { return printf("%s\n", rcsid) == EOF; }

       and f.c is compiled into f.o, then the command

              ident  f.c  f.o

       will output

              f.c:
                  $Id: f.c,v  $
              f.o:
                  $Id: f.c,v  $

       If a C program defines a string like rcsid above but does not  use  it,
       lint(1)  may  complain,  and  some  C  compilers will optimize away the
       string.  The most reliable solution is to  have  the  program  use  the
       rcsid string, as shown in the example above.

       ident finds all instances of the $keyword: text $ pattern, even if key-
       word is not actually an RCS-supported keyword.  This gives you informa-
       tion about nonstandard keywords like $XConsortium$.

KEYWORDS
       Here  is the list of keywords currently maintained by co(1).  All times
       are given in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, sometimes called GMT)  by
       default,  but  if  the  files were checked out with co's -zzone option,
       times are given with a numeric time zone indication appended.

       $Author$
              The login name of the user who checked in the revision.

       $Date$ The date and time the revision was checked in.

       $Header$
              A standard header containing the full pathname of the RCS  file,
              the  revision  number, the date and time, the author, the state,
              and the locker (if locked).

       $Id$   Same as $Header$, except that the  RCS  filename  is  without  a
              path.

       $Locker$
              The login name of the user who locked the revision (empty if not
              locked).

       $Log$  The log message supplied during checkin.  For ident's  purposes,
              this is equivalent to $RCSfile$.

       $Name$ The symbolic name used to check out the revision, if any.

       $RCSfile$
              The name of the RCS file without a path.

       $Revision$
              The revision number assigned to the revision.

       $Source$
              The full pathname of the RCS file.

       $State$
              The  state assigned to the revision with the -s option of rcs(1)
              or ci(1).

       co(1) represents the following characters in keyword values  by  escape
       sequences to keep keyword strings well-formed.

              char     escape sequence
              tab      \t
              newline  \n
              space    \040
              $        \044
              \        \\

IDENTIFICATION
       Author: Walter F. Tichy.
       Manual Page Revision: ; Release Date: .
       Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
       Copyright (C) 1990, 1992, 1993 Paul Eggert.

SEE ALSO
       ci(1),  co(1),  rcs(1),  rcsdiff(1), rcsintro(1), rcsmerge(1), rlog(1),
       rcsfile(5)
       Walter F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control,  Software--Practice
       & Experience 15, 7 (July 1985), 637-654.



                                      GNU                             IDENT(1)
