13.3 Using a Perforce Repository (Revision #40)

Version Control - Perforce

Perforce is a commercial, proprietary, centralized revision control system developed by Perforce Software, Inc. Users work on files in local client workspaces. With Aqua Data Studio 10.0 users can now create a new Perforce repository in Aqua Data Studio 10.0 and manage files. Users can also interact with the Perforce Command Line Options using the Open API interface AQPerforce under com.aquafold.openapi.vcs in the AquaScript editor.

Your first Perforce Workspace using Aqua Data Studio 10.0

Now with Aqua Data Studio 10.0, you can create a Perforce workspace or select an existing Perforce client workspace that has already been set up for your computer

Connecting to an existing Perforce Workspace with Aqua Data Studio

1. Select the Files Tab. Context click on Filesystem
2. Select Checkout Project
3. Under General Tab, select Perforce
4. Enter the Server URI, username and password. Note that the URI starts with p4jrpc://
5. Choose the first radio button to select an existing Perforce client workspace

Right Click Perforce Checkout	Enter URI, Username and Password

Create a new Perforce Workspace with Aqua Data Studio

1. Select the Files Tab. Context click on Filesystem
2. Select Checkout Project
3. Under General Tab, select Perforce
4. Enter the Server URI, username and password. Note that the URI starts with p4jrpc://
5. Choose the second radio button to Create a new Perforce client workspace

Create New Perforce Workspace

Syncing your Workspace

To populate your workspace with the depot files, do a Version Control --> Update(Sync)

1. Select the Perforce workspace you mounted in ADS
2. Right click and select Update(Sync)

Perforce Syncing your Workspace

Once all the files are updated, you will see a message Completed, which indicates you have the most updated files in your workspace

Add files and Commit

1. Create new text or SQL files or copy the files you require to be in version control to the Perforce Repository created using Aqua Data Studio
2. Multi Select the files, right click and select Version Control --> Mark for Add. If you see a '+' sign before the files, these are added to version control
3. To Commit the files, right click on the directory and select Commit.

Perforce Add Files Mark for Add	Perforce Add Files Submit

Once all the files are committed, you will see a green tick mark to indicate that the files are now versioned.

Edit files - First Check Out and make changes

To edit a file, make changes and commit, you first need to Check Out. 

1. Select the file you need to edit.
2. Right click and select Version Control --> Check Out. Notice that the Green Tick mark now turns red. This indicates it is Versioned and can be modified now.
3. Next right click and select Open
4. Make the necessary changes

Perforce Checkout File	Perforce Checkout File Edit

If you are required to Edit many files, Select them all, right click and Select Check Out

Check in Files using Aqua Data Studio - Submit 

Once you are finished with your edits,  check in files using the below steps. An SVN Commit is analogous with Perforce Submit

1. Select the file you need to Check in
2. Right click and select Version Control --> Submit. Notice that the icon changes to the Green Tick

Perforce Check In

Revert unwanted changes

Suppose you want to restore the copy of your file to the revision last synced to your workspace, how will you proceed with the operation ?

1. Select the file you need to edit.
2. Right click and select Version Control --> Revert. Notice that the icon changes to match the files previous state.

Perforce Revert

If at all you are required to Revert entire files inside a folder, you can do so by just selecting the Folder and Right click and select Version Control --> Revert, instead of selecting each files individually.

View Depots and Files using Aqua Data Studio 10.0

If you want to view the Depots available with the Perforce Sever:

1. Under Filesystem, select your Perforce repository. Right click and select Version Control --> Browse Depots
2. You can see the available Depots.
3. Expand the nodes and you can see the different folders and files

Perforce Depot Browse	Perforce Depot Navigation

Another way is

1. Under Filesystem, select your Perforce repository. Right click and select Version Control --> Properties
2. In the Perforce Properties dialog, click on the button Depots
3. You can see the available Depots.
4. Expand the nodes and you can see the different folders and files

Edit Workspace and Client Mappings

If you want to control how the depot files appear in your Aqua Data Studio Workspace, you must map the files and directories on the Perforce server to the corresponding areas of your local server. This only sets up the view and does not transfer files to and fro.

1. Under Filesystem, select your Perforce repository. Right click and select Version Control --> Edit Workspace Client
2. Click on the View Tab
3. Expand the depot
4. Right click on the Folder you are interested in
5. Select from options Exclude Tree, Include Tree, Include Files, Exclude Files, Include Special .. and Exclude Special...

Perforce Edit Workspace	Perforce Edit Workspace View Tab	Perforce Edit Workspace Form Tab

Notice corresponding Client Expression is generated on the right most tab. If you click on the Form Tab and navigate to the bottom you can see View with all the client expressions for the Depot

Show History

Note forJonathan : Need a picture of our show history similar to http://lostechies.com/joshuaflanagan/2010/09/03/use-Perforcek-to-understand-Perforce/

Within the Files Tab, left click on a file, files or directory to select, then right click and navigate to "Version Control" to select "Show History...". This will display the Version Control history of the selection in the repository. Within the Repository Browser, expanding the tree to select the file or directory you wish to view the history on, then left clicking it brings up its history in the History Table. The history displayed in the Repository Browser and the history displayed when selecting Version Control->Show History work similarly.

1. The upper left pane shows the series of revision number
2. The Changelist is the basic unit which consists of a list of files, their revision numbers, the changes you made to the files and a comment
3. You can view the comments for each commit under the header description 
4. Select a commit and right click. Now select Show Changes and you can see the list of files impacted for this purticular commit.
5. The lower panel shows the commit details, including the full diff

Perforce Show History	Perforce Show History Changes

Depot Browser

The Aqua Data Studio Depot Browser is a convenient way to view all of the contents of the Perforce Server. While the Depot Browser shows details on item history, it does not show the status of local working versions. It is more for exploring the remote repository and its contents than managing the local versions of files.

To Launch the Depot Browser, right click on an item in the Files Browser and select Version Control -> Browse Depot.  A window appears with the list of files in the repository.  An expandable tree view appears on the left and a history for the selected items in the tree appears on the right. Inside the tree, right clicking on items allows to open and refresh. 

Additional Perforce features

• Compare with Base Revision
• Revert
• An option to disconnect from the Perforce server.
• Inline differences - You can use Text editors for SQL, HTML, XML, text, JavaScript and Java support syntax highlighting and inline differences. Color-coded indicators instantly mark changes that differ from the local working copy
• File Search  - You can Search for files in specified folders by name and file contents, and even across a subset of files found by a previous search