Putty is a tool (for windows / other programs exist for other OS) which
gives you shell access to a linux
server. Once you have shell access
(not all providers allow this) you can execute linux commands on your
server. And again: providers will limit the commands you are able to
use.
When you are permitted to execute the cvs command, you can use it to automatically update your Moodle installation. I think it is best to split the documentation in steps:
- How to use cvs for the first time to upload a brand new copy of Moodle. Instructions about this step can be found here. This step should be done only once. Don't try to do run this first CVS command over an existing moodle installation: start fresh with a new directory.
- How to update your CVS installation. Use the cd command to move into the root of your Moodle installation. You can use ls to take a look at the content of this directory. You should see all of Moodle's subdirectories. Now type cvs update -dP and all of the files will be updated. More about this step is already here
- How to update only parts of your CVS installation. Now that you know how to update the complete Moodle, it is time to learn how you can tell cvs to only update some directories. Issue the following command. Only those directories listed will be updated. That way you can skipp all of the language files.
cvs update admin auth backup blocks calendar config-dist.php \
course doc enrol error file.php files filter help.php \
index.php install.php lib login mod pix rss theme user \
userpix version.php
You can use the same command to update only the languages you care about:
cvs update lang/en lang/nl
Next step to be written should be:
How to put all of the commands from step 3 in one shell script. Martin L has already provided the script. I haven't yet tested it. I will do that when I start using 1.5 as that seems like a good reason to test such a script.
TortoiseCVS is a nice GUI which makes it easier to use cvs on a windows pc. (Other GUI versions exist for cvs on Mac and Linux) Unfortunately you can't use tortoiseCVS running on your computer to update a copy of Moodle running on a webserver. That's why learning to use the commandline cvs (through Putty) is still necessary. The title of this discussion might confuse people: Limiting "lang" files using Putty & TortoiseCVS should be understood as:
Limiting "lang" files on a linux server using (cvs and) Putty OR
Limiting "lang" files using TortoiseCVS