[p4] Filenames for PCB's And Schematics

[paul goffin]

Hi Nancy,

Quoting Nancy Smith <NSmith at omnexcontrols.com>:

> If so what do you use for for file naming convention. Currently all of our
> designs have a Rxx after the part number for each of our part numbers, for
> example FPCB-2272R09 to define that the circuit board is at Revision 9. 
  
> I understand that in order to track revisions, all filenames have to be the
> same.

They don't have to be the same - I imagine with your current way of doing
things, you just store everything on a shared drive with perhaps
a folder per project?  You _can_ do the same thing in Perforce.

But if you do, you're not gaining much from using Perforce.  For that, yes,
the names need to be the same.

So for your example, you'd just use FPCB-2272.  (Then the first version
automatically becomes FPCB-2272#1, the second FPCB-2272#2, etc.)

But there are 2 possible problems with this and both are "people" issues.

1. Your hardware designers are probably quite wedded to seeing the version number
in the file name.  Preventing them from using the file name as a version
indicator may involve some management effort.  (With your example, you
could set Perforce permissions to reject any file with an "R" in the name..)

2. Software _version_ numbers traditionally start at 1 and Perforce follows this
tradition.  Hardware _revision_ numbers traditionally start at 0 (or sometimes "-")
to indicate the first version is NOT a "revision".  To use Perforce, you'll
have to modify your version numbering conventions and get your designers to accept
that change.

Paul.