From PVCS to Vault #2 -- Workspaces

[ismangil]

From http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=919

Vault allows exactly one local working folder per Vault folder per user per machine

Does this means that there is no notion of "workspaces", where each user can define many parameters, the primary use is having different working folders for different tasks?

The scenario is that a developer may be working with different versions/branches at the same time: main development, bug fixes, builds.

[ericsink]

From http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=919

Vault allows exactly one local working folder per Vault folder per user per machine

Does this means that there is no notion of "workspaces", where each user can define many parameters, the primary use is having different working folders for different tasks?

The scenario is that a developer may be working with different versions/branches at the same time: main development, bug fixes, builds.

Vault has the capabilities you want, but they're done in a way that is different from the way PVCS does them.

Branches in Vault are shown as part of the repository folder hierarchy. It is quite possible to be working on several branches at the same time.

I am not an experienced PVCS user, but from what I understand, PVCS has another dimension to its "namespace" which is basically there to support branching. On contrast, tools like Vault, Perforce, Subversion and SourceSafe store branches in the same namespace as the main repository.

[ismangil]

Thanks for the reply, Eric.

However I'm not sure I understand how I would go about this scenario using Vault.

In PVCS, for our build process we create a specific user called 'autobuild'. This user has several 'workspaces' for example 'release' 'test'. The 'release' workspace set the working directory c:\src\release, and the 'test' set it to c:\src\test.

Therefore in our build script when we change from release to test we simply switch workspaces, and they get to different locations.

From what you're proposing, in SGV I would use 'branches' to represent these different workspaces, and set the working directory for the autobuild user accordingly.

Is that a fair summary?

[ericsink]

Thanks for the reply, Eric.

However I'm not sure I understand how I would go about this scenario using Vault.

In PVCS, for our build process we create a specific user called 'autobuild'. This user has several 'workspaces' for example 'release' 'test'. The 'release' workspace set the working directory c:\src\release, and the 'test' set it to c:\src\test.

Therefore in our build script when we change from release to test we simply switch workspaces, and they get to different locations.

From what you're proposing, in SGV I would use 'branches' to represent these different workspaces, and set the working directory for the autobuild user accordingly.

Is that a fair summary?

That's basically correct.

You would create a branch for dev, release and test. Each branch has its own folder tree in the repository hierarchy. Similarly, each branch has its own working folder on the client machine, which you can define.

You can migrate (aka promote) code between the branches using the Merge Branches wizard.

Your build machine can build out of whichever branch you want.