CVSROOT not read by cvs

Question

We have a CVS server on a remote machine for which I have a line in .bashrc:

export CVSROOT=:pserver:myuser@theserver:/home/cvs

Bash confirms that this is set:

$ echo $CVSROOT
:pserver:myuser@theserver:/home/cvs

I've also got a local CVS repo that I used for some other stuff

/home/myuser/repo-cvs

Which I would access doing (so to override the default in $CVSROOT):

cvs -d /home/myuser/repo-cvs co projA

When I execute any cvs command without -d , I expect it to use the one define in $CVSROOT, but I get stuff like this:

$ cvs login
cvs login: can only use `login' command with the 'pserver' method
cvs [login aborted]: CVSROOT: /home/myuser/repo-cvs

$ cvs co tools
cvs checkout: cannot find module `tools' - ignored

This works however (tools is on the pserver not the local):

$ cvs -d $CVSROOT tools
cvs checkout: Updating tools/
...

So it clearly ignores the env var $CVSROOT

I've deleted ~/.cvspass because it had references to both, I cannot find any other location where this kind of info could be cached/stored.

Any ideas?

Additional Notes

I do not have any overrides set as an alias in bashrc or in .cvsrc

$ cvs -v
Concurrent Versions System (CVS) 1.12.13-MirDebian-11 (client/server)

Answer 1

I made two assumptions:

1. I assumed if you don't specify -d it would next use $CVSROOT based on CVS man page:

   -d cvs_root_directory
Use cvs_root_directory as the root directory pathname of the repository. Overrides the setting of the $CVSROOT environment variable.

2. The directories in which I ran the cvs commands was

   ~/tmp ~/dev/projects

both locations in which I didnt expect the CVS/ local dirs; I expect them like this:

~/dev/projects/myProjA/CVS

I'm guessing if I spend the time I'll find something in the manual that explains that a cvs command will look at the local revision info dir CVS/ before it looks at $CVSROOT

Answer 2

if you are working in checked our directory, cvsroot will be taken which is used while checking out that directory, even though CVSROOT is showing different one.