Vault automation

[alexsosa]

Can Vault be controlled via automation to include and exclude files, create folders etc.?

[Beth]

What are you thinking of using for automation?

Vault doesn't automatically come with automation to add files, create folders, or other actions, but you could either user our API to write something to do that, or use our command-line client to set up something more automated. For example, if you always knew with every new project that you need a set of folders created with certain names, you could create a batch file with command-line client commands to create a set of folders.

[alexsosa]

Hi Beth,

I am trying to integrate Vault and VFP, which apparently has some issues. Someone suggested that it is better to ask Vault to watch a directory while having the discipline to do perform certain procedures at given times. The discipline part sounds like a candidate for automation.

Thanks,

Alex

[Beth]

I'm assuming the "discipline" part is to check out and check in? The checking out part can be removed by using CVS mode. That is found in Vault Tools - Options - Concurrent Development Style. Click the CVS button and you won't have to check out at all. When you change something, it gets marked as edited automatically and is ready for check in.

If you want to have the check-in part be automatic, then I'd need to know what kind of trigger you are looking for on that. If we automatically checked in every time a file changed, you'd end up with a check in with every keystroke. If we integrated with VFP, you'd have to check out and check in every time. I can put in a feature request, I just need more details about what you are envisioning.

In the meantime, one thing you could do is set Vault to use CVS mode, then write a batch script of a project check in using our command-line client. I think you can set a script to run when a program is closed on Windows 7 (not sure on that), so you could have that script run when you close VFP.

[alexsosa]

Hi Beth, I have investigated more, and it turns out that Visual FoxPro (VFP) integrates well with Vault as long as the directory tree already exists within a Vault project (or whatever the correct name is in your terminology). Therefore, the issue becomes how to create, and refresh, that directory structure from the outside, whether thorugh automation or some other means.

Can you point me in the right direction, please? Thank you.

Alex

[Beth]

The directory structure in Vault would only have to be created once for a project.

I don't know anything about VFP, so I'm not sure how well any of my suggestions may work with it.

Can you tell me more about what you mean by automation? I don't know if you mean just the check-out/check-in portions, or performing gets to disk automatically.

[alexsosa]

[quote="Beth"]The directory structure in Vault would only have to be created once for a project.

I don't know anything about VFP, so I'm not sure how well any of my suggestions may work with it.

Can you tell me more about what you mean by automation? I don't know if you mean just the check-out/check-in portions, or performing gets to disk automatically.[/quote]

OLE automation. I want to programatically create folders in the Vault repository where files will later be stored. Since a Visual FoxPro program knows which folders are required but the interoperation of managed and unmanaged code is not straightforward, perhaps a text file can be used to transmit the list of folders that need to exist in the repository. Perhaps that program already exists within Vault?

Thanks.

[Beth]

Yes, you can do that with the Vault command-line client and make a batch file with your commands or whatever preferred method of running scripts that you have.