On 01/17/12 00:00, Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote:
> Much less hassle: "If the system has grcs, it is
> new-style; if not, old-style".

On the contrary, that heuristic is more hassle, because it does
not work as stated.  grcs is commonly used as the name
of the old-fashioned 'rcs' command, right now.  See, for example,
<http://www.openbsd.org/4.5_packages/i386/grcs-5.7p0.tgz-contents.html>.

One could get the heuristic to work, but at that point it becomes
too much hassle.  For example, this:

   if (grcs --version) >/dev/null 2>&1; then
     rcs_style=new
   else
     rcs_style=old
   fi

is just as complicated as this:

   if (rcs --commands) >/dev/null 2>&1; then
     rcs_style=new
   else
     rcs_style=old
   fi

and the whole thing becomes more confusing to users.

Let's keep it simple and stick with plain "rcs" for RCS commands.