How to keep working directory insynch with a repository

christian · Post by **christian** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 12:18 pm

Hi,

Need some advise on how to make sure a developers’ working directory remains in synch with the repository in the face of frequent changes to Vault file locations.

The obvious way is to make sure each developer, at the start of each change request he’s tasked with completing, delete the content of his working directory and then perform a recursive get on the root of Vault. That’s all well and good at the start of a change task, but what happens when the developer needs to synch his working directory with the latest codeline while in the middle of some changes.

In this situation often as not the developer is not in a position to check in his change set, as this would break the automated build. Therefore he can’t simply check-in, delete his working directory and then perform a recursive get.

I’m thinking here, that ideally the developer would be able to perform a Get latest on the root and Vault remove files / directories from their old locations, at the same time as retrieving the latest.

You may think this is being overly cautious, but we’ve been bitten where a developer continues to reference old files by mistake and results in broken builds just when we’re trying to release against a tight deadline.

Can you suggest how I can use Vault to achieve this?

Thanks in advance
Christian

sterwill · Post by **sterwill** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:44 pm

This is exactly what the Get Latest Version feature in Vault does. It will update any files in the developer's working folder that have newer versions in the server's repository (if the file has been modified by the developer, it can automatically merge the changes, do nothing, or overwrite, depending on a user setting). If there are files or folders deleted from the repository, the Vault client will delete them from the working folder (assuming the user setting allows it to do so).

If the client is not deleting old files and folders during a Get Latest Version, check the client options (Tools, Options, Local Files, Perform repository deletions locally). Make sure it is set to one of the "remove" options.

christian · Post by **christian** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:49 pm

So Vault will remove old client files that have been moved to another location in the repository?

Christian

sterwill · Post by **sterwill** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:01 pm

Yes. I just tested this on my 3.0 pre-release build, and it worked. I moved $/Doc/install.txt to $/Doc/Internal/install.txt, committed the change, then performed a Get Latest Version on $/Doc. The file moved to the correct working folder (it's actually deleted, then downloaded again, but the effect is the same). This feature is also present in Vault 1 and Vault 2.

christian · Post by **christian** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:38 am

Beautiful - does Vault also write our code for us? :-)

sterwill · Post by **sterwill** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:00 am

Not yet.