P4 Blog
Feb 21, 2012
Perforce Release 2012.1 introduces the virtual stream, a powerful abstraction of the stream feature. A virtual stream isn't actually a stream at all -- it is simply a filtered view of its parent stream. Creating and using a virtual stream, however, is the same as creating and using a real stream. I'll demonstrate some of that here, building on the stream view explanation I gave in an earlier blog.
Virtual Streams as View Filters
Let's say you're working at Ace Engineering, where there's an active development branch defined thus:
Stream: //Ace/dev
Parent: //Ace/main
Type: development
Paths:
share ...
//Ace/dev is a depot path, and it contains files. You can work with these files by switching your client workspace to the //Ace/dev stream. But what if the //Ace/dev path is huge? And what if you have a team of developers who work with only a small subset of these files? Yes, you could branch a smaller child stream from //Ace/dev. But now, with virtual streams, you don't need to. You can create a virtual child stream that simply narrows the //Ace/dev stream's view. For example:
...
(0)
Feb 16, 2012
A good citizen of a secure world
The topic of security is a bit tricky for a version management system like Perforce. Although we need to keep security in mind, we're not a dedicated security system. Or, as one of my colleagues likes to say, Perforce isn't Fort Knox. It's the gold inside Fort Knox and needs to be protected. And, bear in mind that making data easy to find and use is a key requirement for Perforce.
Back in the good old days, most important IT systems were kept on closed networks guarded by big firewalls, so perhaps you could assume that security wasn't the concern of every application. Now, though, we know that those days are well and truly gone. Many companies have teams working on several continents, which may require less-than-ideal network connections. A lot of people want to work from home or while they're on the road. Personal mobile devices are all over the place. And the severity of malicious activity is worse than ever.
So keeping all that in mind, I'd say that Perforce tries to be a well-behaved part of a secure environment. A secure environment has a multi-layered, defense-in-depth design. It may include firewalls, policy restrictions, layered internal networks, and other pieces...
(0)
Feb 14, 2012
Every workspace has some files that aren't meant to be added to the depot. As of Release 2012.1, the P4IGNORE environment variable gives us a new way to ignore workspace files. Simply create a file at the root of your workspace that contains a list of file names to ignore. For example, create a file called .ignore, containing this list:
*.swp *~ tmp/* .DS_Store .ignore
(Note that the name of the file in this example is itself listed in the file.) Now, set your P4IGNORE environment variable to the base file name of the file just created. On Windows or MacOS, for example:
p4 set P4IGNORE=.ignore
(On non-MacOS Unix systems you'll have to use the native shell to set P4IGNORE.) You can also set P4IGNORE in your P4CONFIG file. Add a line to your P4CONFIG file that looks like this:
P4IGNORE=.ignore
P4IGNORE affects only the commands that search for or add new files: p4 add, p4 status, and p4 reconcile. If you need to bypass P4IGNORE -- to ignore your ignore files -- you can use the -I flag with any of these commands. For example:
p4 status -I .../.ignore
...
(0)
Feb 10, 2012
Over the last several years, Perforce has steadily improved its data replication technology. That’s good news if you have teams working in different parts of the world, or want to take advantage of development tools that put a lot of load on version control, like build automation. In other words, if you’re anywhere near modern software development, Perforce replication is good stuff.
The latest and greatest
Perforce replication started out with only metadata (the Perforce database), and expanded in the 2010.2 release to include full file content. A full replica was great for supporting automated read-only activities, like automatic builds, and of course also made read-only operations much faster for users at remote sites. Replicas also made for an easy disaster recovery (DR) option. The 2011.1 release smoothed some of the rough edges off of replica configuration and maintenance.
The 2012.1 release is baking as we speak, and will offer a pretty significant improvement to the way replicas are deployed and used. Replicas will now be assigned roles that define their purpose and the operations they support.
- ...
(0)
Feb 08, 2012
I'm sure everyone has heard of Moore's Law; first described in 1965 by Gordon Moore, it's held true for close to 50 years. But recent evidence is showing that we are nearing the end of this remarkable time:
The major processor manufacturers and architectures, from Intel and AMD to Sparc and PowerPC, have run out of room with most of their traditional approaches to boosting CPU performance. Instead of driving clock speeds and straight-line instruction throughput ever higher, they are instead turning en masse to hyperthreading and multicore architectures.
But the coming end of Moore's Law is, by now, pretty old news. What's more interesting is: what lies beyond? From what I've been reading recently, the future is likely to involve significant changes, with lots of opportunity but also lots of unexpected new situations to be aware of.
One technique that has received a fair amount of attention is to use some of the other spare capacity in the typical...
(0)
Feb 06, 2012
The 2012.1 release of Perforce is just about to be released for beta. It's loaded with great new features. One is the p4 reconcile command, with its fraternal twin, p4 status.
As you know, Perforce expects you to open files as you work, but it does not require you to do so. You are free to create files, remove files, change file permissions, and modify files in your workspace without using any Perforce commands. Whether you open files before or after you make local file changes is up to you.
Eventually, however, you have to open the files you've been working on in order to submit them. This always been easy with P4V. But in a command shell, finding the files you need to open has been a challenge.
As of Release 2012.1, we denizens of the shell can use p4 status to find the files we need to open. For example:
p4 status src/tools/this.rb - reconcile to edit //depot/stuff/src/tools/this.rb#3 src/tools/that.rb - reconcile to add //depot/stuff/src/tools/...
(0)
Feb 03, 2012
Vancouver Film School(VFS) became our first official Education Partner last year. We provided them with 2,000 education licenses free of charge for usage in their Game Design program, allowing VFS to introduce their students to Perforce's version management system.
At VFS, students take a Perforce class to learn the basics of version management systems and then use Perforce for their projects. While working on projects, students learn about data security, tracking, workflow, and collaboration.
Read the Vancouver Film School's success story to find out more about how they are integrating Perforce into their Game Design program.
Interested in learning more about our Education Partner program? Check out our Education Partner page, then email partners@perforce....
(0)
