Perforce

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Perforce
The Fast Software Configuration Management System
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Perforce

• Q. How to safely perform the sharing of files
  among multiple users ?
• A. There are software configuration
  management tools to manage any sort of
  transactions. One of them is Perforce.

3
Whats good about Perforce ?

• Fast
• Comparatively cheap
• Runs on most platforms
• Supports parallel development
• Easy to administer

4
Topics of Discussion

• Perforce Architecture
• Parallel Development and Branching
• Networking
• Portability and Supported Platforms
• Atomic Change Transaction Model
• Configuration Labels
• Comparison with ClearCase
• Summary and Conclusion

5
Perforce Architecture
Client1
Pp4 sync
Server
Depot a central file repository
p4 submit
ClientN
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Perforce Server
implements optimized database services based on
the Berkeley DB database package.
Server
a Data Manager
a Request Handler
sequences actions to carry out client requests
and manages communication with the client.
a File Librarian
a highly efficient file archiver that stores
repository files on disk local to server.
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Perforce Client

• Client workspace
• Client name
• Client root
• Client view
• Client specification

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Perforce Client

• p4 client

Client cleanup-yzvereva Owner
yzvereva Description Created by
yzvereva. Root /home/yzvereva/cleanup Options
modtime, noclober View //depot/ips/projects/c
leanup///cleanup-yzvereva/
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Parallel Development and Branching

• Two forms of parallel development
• Users can work on files in common code line at
  the same time.
• 2. Perforce supports multiple parallel or related
  code lines in the depot.

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Branching

• Branching is the creation of variant codelines
• from other codelines.

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Perforce Client Views
Depot
Branch 0
Branch 1
Client

View Line 1

View Line 2

Branch n
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Atomic Change Transaction Model

• Perforce
• supports
• submitting multi-
• file changes,
• and each
• change is
• uniquely and
• permanently
• identified.

Change new Client hewey2-yzvereva User
yzvereva Description Fixed warnings in
pbmdrvr and psdrvr, added a new null
driver. Files //depot/hewey/odhdw/nulldrv
r.c add //depot/hewey/odhdw/pbmdrvr.c
edit //depot/hewey/odhdw/psdrvr.c
edit
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Networking

• Uses TCP/IP-based streaming protocol.
• Works equally well on a LAN or around the world.
• Provides 100 interoperability in heterogeneous
  network environments.

14
Portability and supported platforms

• Implemented portably in C
• Server runs on most Unix platforms and on Windows
  NT
• Clients
• - any Unix platform
• - Windows NT, 95
• - OS/2
• - Macintosh
• - BeOS, QNX, Open VMS

15
Configuration Labels

• Labels provide the ability to store a named
• specification of a particular set of file
  revisions
• for later access.
• p4 sync _at_release2.0.1

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Other SCM Systems

• ClearCase
• CVS
• PVCS
• Visual Sourcesafe

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ClearCase vs. Perforce
Fast
Slow
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ClearCase vs. Perforce
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ClearCase vs. Perforce
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Conclusion

• A tool is only as good as you use it,
• the saying goes.

www.perforce.com
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Any questions ?