| Function | SCCS | RCS |
| Initialize an entry | sccs create -fi x.c | ci -i x.c |
| Check out a file for editing | sccs edit x.c | co -l x.c |
| Check in a file | sccs delget x.c | ci -u x.c |
| To see what changes have been made | sccs prs -e x.c | rlog x.c |
| List changes since the last version | sccs diffs x.c | rcsdiffs x.c |
| List all files that are checked out | sccs info | see below |
| List the files that you have checked out | sccs tell -u | n/a |
To list all of the files that are checked out,
use sccs info for SCCS, and for RCS, use
rlog -L -R RCS/* | sed s/,v// | sed s+RCS/++If you are using SCCS and you want to back out of the changes you've made to a file you have checked out, then use
sccs unedit x.c
One advantage to using GNU make in conjunction with source code control systems is that GNU make will automatically check out files under source code control if they are newer than the corresponding files in the current directory. This feature guarantees that your code is always up-to-date. In addition, Emacs works seemlessly with RCS, since both are developed by the Free Software Foundation. You can use a single Meta command in Emacs to check files in and out of RCS.