We are using Accurev 5.6. We run into a weird issue during promotion. One of our developers defuncted a file abc.txt in his workspace and promoted it to the backing stream under an issue. Then after a few days, he realized that he needed his file. He created a file with the same name and promoted it up under the same issue. Before the release, we tried to promote this issue to a parent stream. The Accurev complained saying the file abc.txt existed in the parent stream and prevented us from promoting it.
It looks like the Accurev promotion got the order wrong. It tried to promote the activity of creation of abc.txt first instead of defunct of abc.txt first. What Accurev should have done is to promote activities based on time of the activities: first, defunct the abc.txt in the parent stream and then create the abc.txt file again under a different element ID.
Is this an Accurev bug? Is there anyway to configure Accurev to promote based on time of the activities within one single issue?
This is not a bug in Accurev. This is a nuance of Accurev. Accurev gives each new element an id. This id is unique to that element and stays with that object as it gets defuncted, renamed, moved, etc. This is just how Accurev works, which makes it a blessing and a curse.
Steps to Resolve:
Rename the 2nd element the developer promoted.
Defunct this element.
Undefunct the 1st element.
Promote up both changes.
At this point, you can promote up abc.txt.
You can then purge (Revert to Backed) the defuncted (2nd element).
a. You would want to Revert to Backed in this instance because you probably don't care about that version and so it doesn't sit in the default group of your stream forever.
Search the online documentation for twin for more detailed information. Sorry I couldn't get a direct link.
Twins are a pain, but it looks like Accurev has been slowly improving detecting and fixing them. See the latest release (5.7).
Related
I'm a brand new to Accurev and I'm having many troubles with it. One of the developers I'm working with has promoted bad code (things are now broken that weren't before) for 2 months on a stream, and I'm wanting to get a copy of the original code before any changes were made to it.
I currently have a workspace, and whenever the other developer creates code, I pull his changes into this workspace attempting to fix the bugs. These changes are promoted to an existing issue within Accurev.
Is there any way I can perhaps create a second workspace and obtain a copy of the original code (before any changes were made)? My target date is March 14th.
I would suggest you revert or demote the bad code that was promoted into the stream (Depending on what version of AccuRev you are using). This would put the stream back into the state it was before the promotion occurred.
Below are some suggested readings on the related topics.
Best way to "un-promote" files in Accurev?
https://community.microfocus.com/borland/managetrack/accurev/w/wiki/26745/purge-revert-and-demote
https://community.microfocus.com/borland/managetrack/accurev/w/accurev_knowledge_base/25951/how-to-revert-changes-in-a-stream
https://community.microfocus.com/borland/managetrack/accurev/w/accurev_knowledge_base/26079/what-is-the-proper-way-to-revert-by-change-package
As an alternative, you could create a time-based stream below the one with the bad code. Set a time basis that predates the bad promote.
To do this, I right-clicked the stream >> New Snapshot.
I select "Specified" and enter the date (with a relative time).
From the Snapshot, I created a New Workspace which was then populated with previous code.
Hope this helps!
My colleague and I are participating in a huge project located in Accurev. We've already created own workspaces backed with some stream (let's call it zzz-stream) which is used by many other participants, not only by us.
The point is that we want to exchange our work between our workspaces, make some changes, exchange again, etc. BEFORE making the changes accessible for others, i.e. in other words we don't want to propagate our changes until it is stable and tested, but we want be able to work on it together.
My idea was to create new stream (yyy-stream) backed with zzz-stream, and then change our workspaces to be backed with yyy-stream. But unfortunately I have no rights to create streams.
My second idea was to use a workspace as backed stream, but it doesn't work because Accurev can't use ws as backed stream.
Is there any solution for our problem?
UPD: I accepted Brad's answer as most detailed. However Accurev is too heavy and sluggish to be used effectively. So actually I prefer to use Git for internal needs over the accurev workspace. (see Accurev externally, git internally)
Your idea of creating the yyy-stream is the EXACT right way to do it. The other options are decent workarounds for one-off situations, but creating the extra stream is simple and is fully leveraging AccuRev's capabilities.
That being said, I understand that your admins have stream creation locked down. They of course want control, but should be allowing for maximizing developer productivity and not forcing workarounds like this. My guess is they have stream creation locked down to a particular group being enforced by the server-admin trigger. One common thing I have seen other large sites do is:
- allow streams to be freely created off of a list of acceptable streams (easy to do in the trigger)
- enforce naming rules on the stream creation. This is important to admins in large sites to keep things organized. Again, this is very easy to enforce via the server-admin trigger.
Bottom line, if this is a common situation, work with the admins to allow this capability as per the above. If they have any questions, they are more than welcome to contact AccuRev and we will help them out.
Your idea on using another stream for you and your peer is a good one and is commonly called a collaboration stream. If your site has stream creation locked down, you would need to work with your AccuRev administrator to make that happen.
Another option is for you and the other developer to pull the keeps from the other workspace into your own stream. This relies on both of you being diligent about doing keeps and then you can look at the history of the other developer's workspace to find the keep operation, right-click that transaction and then select Send to Workspace. The destination workspace must be your own.
A third option (more for a situation where you are in your workspace and know exactly what file you want to grab the other users changes)is to bring up the version browser for the file, right click and select history/browse versions. Look for the other workspace, highlight the version in that workspace, right click and select send to workspace. This will checkout that version into your workspace.
This is similar to the change palette suggestion but quicker if your looking to this on a file basis.
Another idea is to use different version control system (e.g. git or svn) over Accurev workspace to exchange the changes and keep our history separated from zzz-stream. (similar to Accurev externally, git internally) Only changed files should be added to other VCS, not whole project. Some merge problems occur though.
We have a need to refactor a code base. The thing is that this will be done by one person and it would be desirable to avoid having the rest of the development team sitting idle while this job takes place.
We therefore tried the following scenario to see if it is possible to work in parallel.
Created file test.txt in directory first in developer A's workspace.
Promoted this file.
Updated developer B's workspace, thereby getting file test.txt
In A's workspace moved file test.txt to directory second.
Promoted this move.
In B's workspace edited file test.txt while it still resides in directory first (no update is made thereby emulating that work is done while refactoring is taking place).
Tried to promote and got a message saying that file test.txt had been modified (correct, file has been moved).
Tried to merge but got an error message saying that AccuRev can't merge since the file is missing in directory second (where it has been moved).
Tried to update B's workspace but that is not allowed since there is a modified file that needs to be merged first.
We are now stuck in a catch 22 situation.
We did try to place a fake file in directory second but that is not being recognized since this file does not belong to the workspace.
Has anyone out there tried something like this and gotten it to work?
It is of course possible to copy files but if there is a better way we would be grateful to hear about this. Or if this is a known bug or limitation in the tool.
We will contact also contact AccuRev support but I thought that I might be able to get some useful tips from the community.
Currently we are using AccuRev client 5.5.0.
Thanks for any suggestions on how to make the tool support this operation.
Referring to your steps 6 & 7: In AccuRev 5.5 after a file is edited and has a (modified) status you first have to keep before you can promote.
At step 8 you could try doing the merge from the Browse Versions view of the file. That way you can select any node to merge with, including the one that has been moved.
Step 9. An AccuRev update will not run successfully if one of the files to be updated is (modified). This is by design. You can keep the file so it has (kept)(member) status then run the update.
David Howland
After contact with AccuRev support the answer is that the only option available is to copy the file to some temp directory, revert the changes, update the workspace and copy the file into the new location in the workspace.
AccuRev will at least tell you which files you have to copy since they will be marked as modified.
I could experimentally verify David's remark to step 9 using AccuRev 5.5.
Let's assume that in the workspace of user A the file was moved and the move was promoted, while in the workspace of user B the file was modified and user B is about to promote his/her change.
Before the file is kept, it will not be possible for user B neither to merge nor to update. But after keeping the modified file the update is possible. The file is first marked as overlap, then the merge succeeds in the new location. Basically, this avoids creating a copy of the file, reverting it and restoring it in the new location after an update, which can be quite cumbersome, as AccuRev does not reveal easily where the move goes.
If user B promotes the modification before user A promotes the move, all goes smoothly, i.e. on update the moved file appears as overlap, but easily merges into the moved file in the new location.
Similar results are obtained when the two users have workspaces connected to different streams and the overlap occurs on a common parent stream. Only if the file is unkept, an error can occur (i.e. only if the move is promoted before the change). Then a simple keep allows to proceed as usual (update, merge, then promote).
3 files present in the backing stream in AccuRev aren't in my workspace after Updating it.
Some things I've tried:
Checked the Missing search. They don't show, with or without timestamp optimization.
Recursively populated the parent of the directories where the missing files are(n't). Got nothing.
Manually copied them from another workspace under the same stream, where they do show. Those copies appeared as External in my workspace, so I deleted them.
As per this question, did accurev show -fx wspaces. Target_trans for that workspace is the same as Trans.
Ran accurev update -9 anyway. AccuRev says everything's up to date, nothing to do.
Other possibly-relevant info:
Two coworkers with workspaces off that same backing stream have the files I'm missing.
All 3 "missing" files are in one of 2 directories that were renamed fairly recently.
The stream hierarchy is shallow, only one parent between the backing stream and the root. However, that parent stream wasn't always there. It was recently inserted, and all changes from our prior release change paletted into it, so the issues list for the backing stream would reflect only changes since the prior release, not since the beginning of time. It has had that effect, with no other anomalies I'm aware of.
I could abandon this workspace and create a new one, but I'd rather not if I don't have to. Any further suggestions would be appreciated.
Could they be excluded?
Check your include/exclude rules.
If they are not, create a new workspace. If they appear in the new workspace, just remove the old one. I have seen this issue before in the past.
Is there any command which can let me remove a workspace from Accurev? I tried accurev rmws WorkspaceName, and it says its removed the workspace, but when I try recreating the workspace it gives me the message that the workspace already exists.
I'd appreciate any help.
It is not possible at all in AccuRev to remove a workspace/stream/snapshot name once it's been created.
Deleting a workspace is just marking it as deleted - for later revival if that should be necessary.
This is clearly stated in the docs (CLI.pdf):
The rmws command makes the specified workspace inactive. More precisely, it deactivates the workspace stream in the depot; [...] Note: after performing an rmws command, you cannot then create a new workspace with the same name. The name remains irrevocably associated with the inactive workspace.
You can change other parameters of the workspace though: You can give it a new name. You can move it to a new machine. You can move it to a new backing stream.
Since you're trying to create a new workspace with the same name....
At a higher level you want to think of a workspace as mapping the current backing configuration to the current location on disk. With this in mind, you'll likely find yourself removing workspaces less. For example, I have a single 'mainline_dev' named workspace that gets moved around to many active project streams over the course of the month. Once I'm done on a given activity (say for the week), I'll promote my work (assign to my story/task/bugfix), and then reparent/move my workspace to the next stream to work. Upon 'update', my local disk fully mirror's the new stream location (hierarchy).
Thus, if you more generically name your workspace, you'll find a pattern of reusing them rather than removing and recreating.
HTH!