You can edit the files you have checked out. It is useful to regularly ensure you are working on the latest copies by doing:

cvs update

This will update your copy of the files from the archive. Any updates made to the archive by others will appear in your copy. If there are any conflicts you will be warned about them and will need to find and resolve them in the files updated. CVS will tell you of conflicts:

Merging differences between 1.42 and 1.43 into main.py rcsmerge: warning: conflicts during merge cvs update: conflicts found in main.py

CVS will actually modify your file which ends up with both versions of the conflict:

<<<<<<< main.py def detect_outlier(limit, score) ======= def detect_outlier(maximum, score) >>>>>>> 1.43

Here I added a limit variable to the method whereas someone else added maximum. I need to choose one or the other.

To add any new directories that have been added to the repository to your local checked out copy, and to prune any directories that are empty from the local checked out copy, use:

cvs update -dP