Peter Bojanics put this together for OpenConcept.

Familiar scenario: someone has checked a new version of a file into the CVS tree that resulted in a regression of the application. You want to roll that version back to a known state. This brief tutorial shows how to do it. 1. First, I update my working copy to the latest version...

$ cvs update BE_Article.class P BE_Article.class

2. Now, let's find the latest stable version...

$ cvs log BE_Article.class

RCS file: /cvsroot/back-end/back-end0.5.x/class/BE_Article.class,v

revision 1.45 date: 2003/04/08 16:40:51; author: iclysdal; state: Exp; lines: +109

revision 1.44 date: 2003/04/05 23:20:51; author: mgifford; state: Exp; lines: +37 -20

3. So I want to merge changes between version 1.45 and 1.44 (i.e. backwards), into my working copy...

$ cvs update -j1.45 -j1.44 BE_Article.class retrieving revision 1.45 retrieving revision 1.44 Merging differences between 1.45 and 1.44 into BE_Article.class

4. Let's make sure that our current version matches the 1.44 version...

$ cvs diff -r1.44 BE_Article.class

Good... no output (i.e. no differences)

5. BTW, if we wanted to see the differences from the current HEAD, we would do this...

$ cvs diff -rHEAD BE_Article.class

6. Finally, we commit the current working copy, effectively rolling back the previous changes made by Ian in 1.45

$ cvs commit -m \"reverting back to state in revision 1.44 to undo some bugs\" BE_Article.class Checking in BE_Article.class; /cvsroot/back-end/back-end0.5.x/class/BE_Article.class,v BE_Article.class new revision: 1.46; previous revision: 1.45 done

done.