Can I tell Vault Client to ignore certain files on GET?

[davenovak]

So here's our situation: we are building a game which includes a number of very heavy (i.e., large) Art assets (e.g., file types such as *.max). These are interspersed throughout the source branch rather than all under a common "Art" folder as this makes it far more convenient for artists.

The problem though is us developers could care less about these "raw" art assets. They are not required to run the application as the app uses a compiled version of those resources. The trouble here comes in that Developer GETs from Vault can take a good bit of time (especially over WAN) because there appears to be no way of filtering out these huge art files.

I know we can exclude files from Vault by default (though we want these checked in) and that I can Cloak certain directories. But can I essentially cloak a given file type/extension?

This would be an excellent feature to add if you don't have it already.

In case it matters, we're using Vault Standard 5.1.2.

[Beth]

It's currently not possible to just cloak individual files or to exclude some from a Get. I will log a feature request.

If users are not checking in updates to the art files, then what you could do is use the Move function to move the art files to a different folder so that it's not part of your main project folder. If there are only rare updates, then users would have to check in the art updates to the new location.

F: 16205

[davenovak]

Unfortunately these art updates are very common and are interspersed with files that we DO want. And moving them to a separate folder would make life very difficult for the artists as they depend upon the other files in the folders where they currently live.

I wish I could cloak by file type.

[Beth]

For another work-around idea, what about writing a script using the Vault CLC that would perform a Get on just the files they want? Then they just have a small batch file to run to Get just the files they need from that project. It might take a lot of typing initially up front, but once it's made once, then all users could copy it and edit the login information to their own logins. Then a smaller Get is just a double-click away.

[davenovak]

Unfortunately, using command line really isn't feasible either, unless of course CLC supports exclusions through its interface. The reason is because we typically want to do a GET from the root and there are hundreds of directories and tens of thousands of files (of varying file types). Maintaining such a command-line script would be horrific.

As a side question: does Vault CLC use the local Vault cache?

[Beth]

What I was suggesting is that the script be written to get individual files and folders. The script would be more than one line. The good part is that once it's written the first time, it would save you time later. The downside is that it could take some time to get it written the first time.

If I was doing it, I'd use first the CLC command for ListFolder to just generate a list of everything in my repository (http://download.sourcegear.com/misc/vau ... LISTFOLDER) and I've have it dump that list to a file. For example:

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vault LISTFOLDER -host yourhost -user youruser -password "yourpassword" -repository "Repository name" $ >> c:\FILELIST.TXT

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Then I'd use the file with the results to write the script that would look something like:

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vault REMEMBERLOGIN -host yourhost -user youruser -password "yourpassword" -repository "Repository Name"

Get $/zCopies
Get $/1TRUNK/Folder3/Test3a.txt
Get $/1TRUNK/Folder3/Test3b.txt
Get $/1TRUNK/Folder3/Test3c.txt
Get $/1TRUNK/Folder3/Test3d.txt
Get $/1TRUNK/Folder3/Test3e.txt

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Anything you don't want retrieved just wouldn't be in the list. In my case zCopies is a folder and I wanted everything in that folder. Since I didn't want everything in Folder 3, I just listed the items I wanted from that folder. The batch file would only need to be updated when new files are added.

If you want to get more complex, you could write a script that runs the ListFolder, parses the results, remove any image files from the list, and then runs the results through a Get.

These are just some ideas for work-arounds. I have the feature request logged.

The Vault CLC does use the local Vault cache.

[davenovak]

I understood you correctly, and if we only talking about a few hundred file, a couple of folders, and low "churn", this would be a reasonable approach.

But what we have is 50,000+ files, 10,000+ directories, and lots of "churn" from dozens of developers and artists. Maintaining such a list is not feasible.

Again, an exclusion filter is what's needed here.