[p4] Feature request...

[David Jeske]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2000 at 05:34:29PM +0000, David Corbin wrote:
> It would be nice to be able to specify "client view" arguments on the
> sync command line.  I would want to do this for day-to-day use,
> but for automated releases, and things like that where the EXACT path in
> the depository may be different every time, it would be nice to be able
> to do it.  Essentially, I want to a one-time read-only copy of a branch
> in the repository....
> 
> I'm sure I could cobble together some tool that builds my client on the
> fly, but it's easier if p4 already does it...:)

We would like that also, although I would explain this differently:

I wish I could perform a sync from a "client spec" without actually
creating and deleting the client spec. We have automated tools which
checkout and build releases, and they have to create client specs,
sync, build, and then delete the client specs..

That said.. it's not that important, because it's pretty easy to just
delete the client spec afterwords.

-----

We actually have a command line tool which "auto creates" the client
spec for human users users also. The only trouble we run into is that
because it's all based on "P4CONFIG" files which setup P4CLIENT, when
someone deletes a directory that they checked out, the server ends up
a 'dead' clientspec lying around...

For example, here are a few of my old 'vistigial' client specs:

d1.egroups.net:~/onelist/content/cgifiles/default> p4 clients | grep jeske
Client jeske944598674 1999/11/07 root /u/jeske/findmail 'Autocreated by p4co '
Client jeske944647424 1999/11/08 root /u/jeske/findmail 'Autocreated by p4co '
Client jeske944651441 1999/11/08 root /u/jeske/findmail 'Autocreated by p4co '

We created this tool because lots of non-engineers use p4, and it's
much easier to teach them to type "p4co findmail" than it is to teach
them to edit p4 client specs.

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske at chat.net