Branching with shared files

[BigBrett]

I am always having to do extra work re-creating shares between projects after branching and would really like to find the optimum way to do this.

We current have our folder structure as Root1 > Project1 and Root2 > Project2. Project2 is a superset of Project1 so has a lot of file shares set up. When I branch the folders Project 1 and then Project 2, all the shares have been broken and I have to delete files in Project 2 Branch and re-share from Project 1 Branch.

As I understand it from the help file, the share links would have been retained if they were internal to the folder being branched.

If I had set up my folder structure such that I had both Project1 and Project2 under a common root and then did a folder branch at that root, would the share links between Project 1 and Project 2 have been retained ?

If so, is it then possible to move existing folders such that they reside under a common root AND retain the current share links while doing so ? The help for the Move command does not mention anything about file shares and I don't want to break anything by experimenting.

Regards,
Brett

[Beth]

I didn't check this on all versions, but on Vault 7.1.0 you are correct as long as the shares are all internal to the branch. If you shared something that existed outside the branch, then the share is broken.

I set up a small example in the Vault Pro Demo if you want to look at it. The connection information is vaultprodemo.sourcegear.com, and use a login name of guest and a number up to 10 and the same for the password. For example, your login in password might be guest3 and guest3. Then look in the path $/Text Files/test1. That particular test1 was branched from $/test1. The shares I made first under $/test1/Shares have 3 files coming from outside the test1 folder and 3 of the files came from testfolder2. The shares that came from testfolder2 remained after the branch, whereas the other 3 from outside test1 were turned into branches.

I see you mentioned moves, so I created a Moves folder next. I moved Shares and testfolder2 into the Moves folder, and all the shares stayed. I then branched the moves folder into TextFiles. The results were the same as in the previous paragraph.

You can test things out ahead of time either on our demo server, or by creating a new Vault repository in your own just for testing scenarios and then delete that repository when you are finished with it.

[BigBrett]

Thanks for the reply Beth.

I tested this in a repository and moving folders into a common root does indeed retain the links, as does branching at the common root.

This should save me a massive amount of time and effort.

We are unfortunately still on 6.1 until we can convince the boss that expenditure on a Windows 2012 Server to replace our current Windows 2003 server is worth it.

Regards,
Brett

[Beth]

Thanks for the update.

The release notes have a list of new features and fixes that might interest you.
7.0: http://www.sourcegear.com/vault/release ... o/7.0.html
7.1: http://www.sourcegear.com/vault/release ... o/7.1.html

Vault 7.2 is coming soon.