[p4] Re: Now, about mapping something onto two locations...

[Jeff A. Bowles]

At 03:43 PM 6/30/2000 +0200, Hans Schmid wrote:
>Is it possible for Windows clients to checkout a single file from the depot
>to two different places in the local workspace? (I tried to set up a view to
>easily create an Setup.exe, with the same library in two different
>directories)

         In general, Perforce tries *very* hard to have a one-to-one mapping
         from files in your workspace to corresponding files in the repository.
         The "Views:" section of the "p4 client" form have this as
         a hard-and-fast rule; "p4 label" and "p4 branch" have similar
         restrictions in their "Views:" sections.

         If this feels like something you want to work around, then you have
         several options:
         1. Have your build/staging mechanisms copy the file to the other
             locations, so that only one copy is the "real" copy that you edit;
         2. Use "p4 integrate" to push copies from a master copy in the
             repository to subordinate copies that "shadow" the "real" copy.
         3. Although some people have recommended having a second workspace
             that pulls in the files - and this can be made to work - it's 
a trap. In
             general, you *never* want a folder (a.k.a. directory) on a 
local disk
             to be part of more than one Perforce client. (It's not an 
error, but
             usually leads you to assume things that will bite you later.)

         This sort of question feels like there's a higher-level 
need/requirement that
         you're trying to deal with.  What are you trying to do, that you 
need this
         sort of mechanism?

         -Jeff Bowles
         Perforce Consulting Partner