I recently saw some folks sending around proposed stream structures via email. These hand-crafted works of art clearly took an incredible amount of time in order to line up all the pipes and dashes to represent the connecting lines. Adding a new stream means re-working all the connecting lines… what a pain!

An alternate and simpler solution is to create a temporary depot and all the streams/snapshots/workspaces… then take a screenshot and send the stream hierarchy as an image. This is better because adding new streams will dynamically update the position of all streams. Though, there are times when simply pounding out a quick ASCII version is desired…

Taking a page from Fortran/Python formatting and reminiscing about my nethack days… here’s an example technique for modeling AccuRev with ASCII.

The Language:

        depot --name
       stream -~name
     snapshot -$name
    workspace ->user
    timebasis -@name
       hidden -*name
  default grp -^name

An Example:

    --depot-~test-~int-~fix1234->dthomas
                      -~featureX->dpoole
                                ->bdemaria
                      -@featureY->dleblanc
                      -$nightly_20070507
                  -$rc_20070508-^maint-~dthomas
                                      -$rc_20070508.01
                                      -$rc_20070508.02
              -$rel_20070509
              -$rel_20070618

Ok, I’m just playing around. It’s Friday!

/happy hacking/ – dave