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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>We are using subversion and it has the same problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>We re-arranged our project structure so that there is a folder
that contains all of the common code which is well organised into sub folders.
Each projects folder actually contains a minimal set of files that are
currently, and always going to be, completely unique to that project. Sometimes
this is just the main form. The rest of the files are under Common. The project
uses clause contains a list of every file in the project with relative paths. Files
for components are’nt listed in the project because they are in folders
that are in our Library path.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>You mentioned that it may be a problem for all projects to share
the same copy of a file, but I think it works better this way. In this case you
can make the changes to your file, and then make sure it works with other
project before checking things in. When the files were shared it was pretty
common for someone to check is a change that worked with one project, but not
with another.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>The only thing that this doesn’t handle is files that are
shared between each project that are not compiled into the exe, such as help
files. In subversion you can share folders (using svn-externals), so we have a
common folder that contains these files and share this folder with each project
that needs them. Again this has actually improved things because these files are
nicely organised into sub folders rather than all being in the same folder as
the exe.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Stacey<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz
[mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz] <b>On Behalf Of </b>David Brennan<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 26 September 2007 10:12<br>
<b>To:</b> 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [DUG] Source Control - Sharing files between projects<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Hi,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>I’m
interested in hearing how people use their source control. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>We
currently use Visual SourceSafe (VSS) which it turns out (after some comparison
with other options) is quite nice in terms of core feature set. However is
isn’t a true database with atomic commits so there is that constant risk
of database corruption if a network connection dies. We’ve been pretty
luck so far but we have had one fairly minor scare. It also lacks strong
support for branching and changeset type changes. So I can certainly see
benefits in moving to a more powerful tool. The problem is that the
alternatives all seem to be missing one or more VSS features. For example I
don’t like Subversion/CVS because their lack of explicit checkouts means
you can’t tell which developers are working on a particular file (unless
you use Subversion locks but then only one developer can edit the file at once,
unlike VSS’s multiple checkouts).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>So
the current favourite is probably Perforce. I know several companies on DUG
(most notably Accredo) use and love Perforce. It looks great. Costs a bit but
we can probably handle that. The one feature it appears to be missing is Shared
Files. To explain, VSS allows you to share a file between multiple folders. We
have maybe a dozen Delphi projects and most of our source files are used by
more than one project. That’s fine, we put each project into a different
VSS folder and share the files to the projects which require them.
Unfortunately this appears to be a VSS specific ability.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>So
the questions:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>1.
Does anyone know how to reliably achieve similar shared file between folders
functionality in Perforce? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>2.
Most development companies must have similar shared source files. How do you
structure your projects and source files? (Note: I am talking about source
files used by projects here, not files which are compiled into VCL packages) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Some
thoughts on question 2:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>One
option is to just put all files into a single directory. No need to share now!
However this means that projects could easily end up compiling in files you
don’t think they are (or should be) using because Delphi will always find
the file. With our current separate folders scheme there is some control and
you can be fairly sure whether a project is or is not using a source file.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Another
option would be to put the projects in one directory, the source files in one
or more other directories, and then get the projects to reference each source
file by relative path. This way each project will only be able to compile in
files which are specifically referenced in the project file so you can easily
check which files are being used. The downside of this (and the previous option
too) is that each project is directly sharing the files with the others. So if
you are making multiple changes in one project over the period of a week or so
then it quite probable that none of your other projects will compile until you
are finished because they will be trying to compile in your changed files. This
is particularly frustrating if you need to make a small unrelated change to
another project midway through the week. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>So…
what’s a developer to do!? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Cheers,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>David.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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