---
name: "rcsmerge"
section: "1"
platform: "openbsd"
package: "man"
version: "8.0-current-20261101"
release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)"
platforms: ["linux", "openbsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/rcsmerge"
---

# rcsmerge(1)

merge RCS revisions

## NAME

**rcsmerge** – merge RCS revisions

## SYNOPSIS

**rcsmerge** \[**-EV**\] \[**-k***mode*\] \[**-p**\[*rev*\]\] \[**-q**\[*rev*\]\] \[**-x***suffixes*\] \[**-z***tz*\] **-r***rev* *file ...*

## DESCRIPTION

The **rcsmerge** program merges changes between two revisions of an RCS file into the corresponding working file.

**rcsmerge** also supports keyword substitution – see the [rcs(1)](/rcs/1.md) man page for more information.

The following options are supported:

- **-E**

  Default merge: see [diff3(1)](/diff3/1.md) for details.

- **-k***mode*

  Specify the keyword substitution mode.

- **-p**\[*rev*\]

  Print result to standard output.

- **-q**\[*rev*\]

  Be quiet about reporting.

- **-r***rev*

  Merge with respect to revision *rev*. This option should be specified twice to merge changes between two specific revisions. If only one revision is specified, merging is done between that revision and the latest revision of the default branch.

- **-V**

  Print RCS's version number.

- **-x***suffixes*

  Specify the suffixes for RCS files. Suffixes should be separated by the ‘/’ character.

- **-z***tz*

  Specify the time zone for keyword substitution.

## ENVIRONMENT

- RCSINIT

  If set, this variable should contain a list of space-delimited options that are prepended to the argument list.

## EXIT STATUS

The **rcsmerge** utility exits with one of the following values:

- 0

  No overlaps.

- 1

  Overlaps were found.

- 2

  An error occurred.

## EXAMPLES

Merge differences between revision 1.4 and 1.8 of *foo.c* and print the result to standard output:

```
$ rcsmerge -p -r1.4 -r1.8 foo.c
```

Undo changes between revision 2.4 and 2.8 of *foo.c*, overwriting the working copy:

```
$ rcsmerge -r2.8 -r2.4 foo.c
```

## SEE ALSO

[ci(1)](/ci/1.md), [co(1)](/co/1.md), [ident(1)](/ident/1.md), [merge(1)](/merge/1.md), [rcs(1)](/rcs/1.md), [rcsclean(1)](/rcsclean/1.md), [rcsdiff(1)](/rcsdiff/1.md), [rlog(1)](/rlog/1.md)

## STANDARDS

The flags \[**-AeT**\] have no effect and are provided for compatibility only.