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## 4 Selected files

Many of the commands work on the current set of selected files which can be either the set of marked files (if any file is marked and marks are not ignored) or whichever file or directory the cursor is on.

If a directory is selected but the command cannot be applied to a directory, then it will be applied to the set of files under this directory which are in the ‘`*cvs*`’ buffer.

Furthermore, each command only operates on a subset of the selected files, depending on whether or not the command is applicable to each file (based on the file's status). For example, `cvs-mode-commit` is not applicable to a file whose status is ‘`Need-Update`’. If it should happen that PCL-CVS guesses the applicability wrong, you can override it with the special prefix `cvs-mode-force-command` normally bound to `M-f` (and file a bug report). The applicability rule can be slightly changed with `cvs-allow-dir-commit` and `cvs-force-dir-tag`.

By default, marks are always in effect (you may change this, however, by setting the variable `cvs-default-ignore-marks`) except for the commands that ‘`tag`’ or ‘`diff`’ a file (which can be changed with the variable `cvs-invert-ignore-marks`).

In addition, you may use the special prefix `cvs-mode-toggle-marks` normally bound to <T> to toggle the use of marks for the following command.

This scheme might seem a little complicated, but once one gets used to it, it is quite powerful.

For commands to mark and unmark files, see Marking files.