Question about RCS check-in

[David Buonomo]

We are using RCS to "control" our source.  Our strategy has been to keep a
read-only copy of each source file checked-out after a check-in (ci -u <file>).
This allows us much faster compile/link phases when we build an entire system
(there are quite a few source files; > 2000).  The system build script simply
runs through our baseline tree running any makefile that it finds which in turn
will recompile/link recently touched source files.

The problem is that the modification time on the source file changes when the
check-in occurs.  This will cause that file to be recompiled (remember make)
even though there was no change to the file, only its modification time
changed.

Has anyone else experienced a problem of this type?  I would appreciate hearing
any approaches to how this was resolved.  I am currently thinking along the
lines of writing a program that will record the current modification time of
the file via fstat, check-in the file via ci, and then restore the modification
time via utime.  Although this will probably work, I feel that there should be
SOMEONE out there that has been this route that may have a more elegant/simpler
solution.

David Buonmomo
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