vcs — a small local version control (learning project)

About

vcs is a small, local version control system I built to practice modern C++.

Disclaimer This is a learning project. It is not intended for production use and may not be actively maintained.

Features:

• Local repository initialization
• Stage files for commit
• Create commits with complete file snapshots
• View commit history
• Switch to previous commits

Intentional limitations:

• No network functionality
• No diff algorithms
• No branches or merging
• No compression or delta storage
• Non-cryptographic hashing (deterministic FNV-1a; local use only)
• Custom Base64 implementation (minimal; not designed for adversarial input)

Project Structure

vcs/
├── CMakeLists.txt             # Build configuration
├── README.md                  # This document
├── include/vcs/               # Public header files
│   ├── cli/                   # Command-line interface
│   ├── core/                  # Core domain logic
│   ├── storage/               # Storage and filesystem
│   └── utils/                 # Utility functions
├── src/                       # Implementation files
│   ├── cli/                   # CLI implementation
│   ├── core/                  # Core implementation
│   ├── storage/               # Storage implementation
│   ├── utils/                 # Utils implementation
│   └── main.cpp               # Program entry point
└── tests/                     # Unit tests

Layers

1. CLI: Parses arguments and calls into the core layer
2. Core: Repository operations and data types (Repository, Commit, Index)
3. Storage: Filesystem and on-disk layout (.vcs, objects)
4. Utils: Logging, errors, hashing

Requirements

• CMake 3.20 or higher
• C++20 compatible compiler (GCC 11+, Clang 14+, or MSVC 2019+)
• Git (for cloning the repository)

Build Instructions

# Configure and build
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build

# Run executable
./build/vcs help

Usage

The following commands assume that the vcs executable is available in the build directory or in PATH.

# Initialize repository
vcs init

# Add files or directories to staging area (recursive)
vcs add file.txt
vcs add src/
vcs add .

# Create commit
vcs commit "First version"

# Show history
vcs log

# Switch to a commit, tracked files are synced; tracked files missing in target are removed; untracked stay
vcs checkout <commit-hash>

Testing

Unit tests use Catch2 and run via CTest.

# Run tests
ctest --test-dir build

Documentation

The generated Doxygen docs are published via GitHub Pages:

• https://danardiello.github.io/local-version-control/

Contributing

This is a learning project. Feedback is welcome, but the project may not be actively maintained.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Built with CMake
• Testing with Catch2