Good day all,

I was wondering if there is a less time and space intensive method to making branches and moving between them. As I understand it, the way you make a branch is:

p4 branch <branch name> This creates the mapping. Then you change your client view to include both the original and the branch and execute:

p4 integrate -b <branch name> This copies all the source files of the entire original directory tree to the branch's root directory.

p4 submit This instantiates the branch in the repository which mainly updates a bunch of databases but, because the branch is identical to the original, no source files are actually copied.

Since the branch is identical to the original, it seems such a waste of space and time to copy the files to branch directory. Is there a way to make a branch without this being done ?

Also, as I understand it, the way you switch between branches is to change the view and 'sync'. This deletes all the files in the directory tree going out of view and fills the directory tree coming into view.

Isn't there a way to tell Perforce to use the same tree for each branch and (hopefully) have it not delete/copy any files which didn't change between branches ? I've tried having the view point to the same directory tree in my client space but it doesn't help. Perhaps there's a way to accomplish what I want with 'integrate' ?

Kevin Bailey - Xylan Corp. kbailey at xylan.com