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

[Jonathan Biggar]

Jamie.Echlin at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> The key point is that there is no obvious equivalent of svn switch in
> perforce... Yes you can branch on the server with -v but as Steve said
> you can't work on it unless you get it on the disk, so you're going to
> have to do the disk copy one way or another. Probably svn switch could
> be done with some view spec manipulation and sync -k...
>
> But the way we addressed this problem of branching very large codebases
> is to come up with a custom tool that implemented a form of sparse
> branching, which we call shelving. Only those files that are different
> from the "trunk" are actually branched (a la clearcase)... This makes
> the branch useless in of itself, you can only work on the files after
> unshelving... At which point you can commit (deliver the branch) or
> reshelve again...
>   
It would be really nice if p4 clients, when doing sync, recognized that
a file was the same version when populating a branch as one your client
already has and just used a hard link rather than copying the data down
again.  Then p4 edit could break the hard link and copy the file when
you're ready to modify it.

-- 
Jon Biggar
Floorboard Software
jon at floorboard.com
jon at biggar.org