[p4] How do YOU identify the code set for a release?

[Tony Sweeney]

Steve Williams wrote:
> I've been using Subversion for a few years now, using the branching 
> method described below, and it has been working great.  I am in the 
> process of being persuaded to shift to Perforce and I wish to use the 
> same branching technique.  However, the difference between Subversion 
> and Perforce in branching is hindering the shift.  Subversion's 
> branching is cheap in both server disk space, client disk space and 
> client time (a total of a few seconds to branch a multi-gigabyte source 
> tree).  Perforce branching seems to require a physical copy on the 
> client disk of the whole source tree for the branch.  
The '-v' flag to 'p4 integrate' suppresses the population of the branch 
client.  This should address your principal objection.

Tony.
> When the source 
> tree is tens of gigabytes and the physical copy of the source tree on 
> the client disk takes half an hour or so, this method quickly falls out 
> of favour, plus the requirement to fill out a text-based form to make a 
> simple branch makes scripting the process an interesting exercise in 
> text file manipulation.
>
> So, I'm also keen to see what the preferred and most efficient approach 
> is, and if they are the same or mutually exclusive.  The branching 
> approach makes sense to me, but it does not seem to fit within the 
> Perforce methodology from what I have seen.  The Perforce docs even say 
> that they based their branching model on the ancient method of making a 
> physical copy.  I'd like something that is not a hark back to the 80's 
> when source trees were measured in kilobytes.
>
>