[p4] How to specify a release for build team?

[David Weintraub]

Do you have a Spec depot? If you do, you can always find out what a
view looked like at a particular release, and restore it if you have
to recreate that release. Doing this would help you without having to
change any processes.

The most obvious solution is to have client templates for producing
standard views. The "p4 client" command takes a "-t template"
parameter to help you setup your own view based upon the template
(although this can always be modified to death by the developer
setting it up).

For the build, take the template, munge it until it becomes a valid
view (probably just changing the name to a valid view name), and use
the "p4 client -i < template" syntax to create the build as part of
your automated build process. That way, your build process' view is
derived from the template that your developers are using. You can also
version, label, and branch these template files, so if you try to
recreate the old view, you're setting your view based upon the
template at the time of the old build.

You should also look at why your views are so complex in the first
place. Is there a way to simplify them? There are already enough ways
to get into trouble in the development process that you don't have to
make things even harder and more error prone. You don't need to create
any more fun because of build errors do to bad client views.

On 2/2/07, Helck, Christopher <chelck at ebs.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm curious how people fully specify a release in Perforce. Let me
> explain. Typically when our development group is ready to make a release
> of a product (Product-A say) they create a release branch, tag the
> files, and give the build team the label name. The build team syncs to
> the label, looks for a file called "certbuild" and executes it (this in
> turn kicks off a maven or ant build).
>
> The problem is that some projects have complex views. Before a release a
> developer often logs onto the build machine and tweaks a custom view.
> This is bad for all sorts of reasons including that previous builds
> can't be reproduced.
>
> I can think of three solutions:
>
> 1. Require all builds to use a default view.
> 2. Cut and past the view contents, send it to the build team, and have
> them modify the view.
> 3. Developers create customer views that match the label name. So if the
> label is product-a-2.4.5 then there will be a view with the same name.
>
> Any other ideas or suggestions?
>
> Regards,
> C. Helck
>
>
>
> Thank you for being part of it.
>
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-- 
--
David Weintraub
qazwart at gmail.com