RADE

Principles

The Import Graphic Tool can be used instead of the adl_import command for importing changes from one workspace into the current one. The main difference between the two commands is that adl_import operates on objects specified by the user while the Import Graphic Tool shows all the object changes which appeared since a given date and let the user to choose what are those he/she wants to import.

Then the  main interest is that the user is not obliged to remember all the changes performed in one workspace before importing them into another workspace. Using the Import Graphic Tool, he/she can see all the changes from the last to the oldest ones by just specifying the date since which all the object changes must be retrieved from the database.

Note that when the same change has been applied several times on the same object, only the last change is displayed because it is not possible to extract one change among all to import it.

Note also that the changes displayed are not only those performed locally in the workspace where they are found: the tool displays all the changes which arrived, in the attached components, in the workspace whatever they have been performed locally or have come by collect, synchronization or import.
It's up to the user to choose what are the changes he/she is responsible of and to import them.

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Appearance

The interface is split in two parts:

• one part for displaying the object changes in a tree format and for selecting/unselecting changes before starting the import
• and a second part for information and printing traces of command executions.

The title bar displays the names of the origin and target workspace for the import.

Under the menu bar, the date which is displayed is the date used for searching the object changes, that's to say the date since which all the changes perfomed on objects present in the origin workspace have been searched and then displayed by the tool.

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Menu and Symbols

	The menu bar contains three menus: the "File" menu is used for exiting from the program the "Import" menu is used for starting a real import or a simulation of import the "Tools" menu allows to change settings
	The button bar contains three buttons: the button to the left displays the current selection date and is used to enter a new one the second button is used to start a simulation of import the button to the right is used to start a real import

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Object Changes

Object changes are displayed using the CAA file tree

• frameworks at the first level
• modules, and data right under the frameworks
• etc

Tree nodes are files and directories and the changes which occured on them appear as "attributes" of these files and directories.

Here are the conventions used for displaying the file tree:

• the root node of the tree represents the whole set of modifications and is not a modification itself.

• a subset of the origin workspace's file tree is shown: only files or directories which changed since the specified date are displayed

• intermediate directories with no change are drawn in light gray to distinguish them from real changes

• a node corresponding to a directory is identified by a before its name
• the directory or file name is followed by a various number of icons according to the types of changes it owns:
  • for a creation
  • for a new version of a file
  • for a deletion of a file or a directory
  • for a restoration (adl_unrm)
  • for a rename or move of file or directory
  • for a new description (not yet available for users)
  • for a change in the execution mode of the UNIX rights (not yet available for users)
• if the same object owns a creation change and a new version change, only the creation change is displayed (even if it is the last version which will be imported)
• if the same object owns a deletion change and a new version change, both icons are displayed because the two changes will be imported (in case of restoration in the target workspace, the last version will be restored that way)
• if the same object owns several new version changes, only one icon is displayed because the last version contains the former ones

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Usage

Starting the Tool

To launch this tool, you have first to launch the federate graphic tool by the command adl_gui. For more informations, have a look for its documentation.

A current working workspace is needed to use this tool. The current workspace is considered as the target workspace for the import.

This origin workspace has to be specified in the first panel opened by the Tool. The tool will retrieve changes from this workspace since a date which will be asked by the tool.

When the tool is started, it asks the user for entering the selection date. If the tool is used several times between the same origin workspace and running in the same target workspace's image, the tool will propose the date of the last import launched from it and between the same origin and target workspaces. Note that a current working image is needed because the date is recorded in it. In other cases, the date proposed is the current date, it must be changed in order to select the object changes to be displayed. Note that the current date will not select any change since nothing should have been done at the "same" time in the origin workspace! The date must be entered in the format YYYY/MM/DD YYYY/MM/DD-hh:mm YYYY/MM/DD-hh:mm:ss

The "Calendar" button allows to enter a date, starting from the date currently entered in the first dialog window and linked with a calendar, that's to say that if you change one date's field, the others are computed accordingly. When a new date is set, click on the "OK" button and this date will be set also for the first dialog window.

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Changing the Selection Date

This can be done by clicking on the button displaying the current selected date. Each time a new date is entered, the display is refreshed with the new set of object changes.

Normally any date could be entered:

• if the date is older than the creation date of the origin workspace, all changes will be displayed
• if the date is younger than the most recent change, no change will be displayed

Anyway remember that the same changes can be imported several times, only the first import will be significant, further ones won't produce anything. So it is not dangerous to select a date which lead to select too old changes.

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Comparing Files

When a change on the contents of a file is displayed by the tool, the associated popup menu contains an item allowing to launch a "diff" tool between the two files.

The default "diff" tool is 

• vdiff32 on Windows-NT
• xdiff on Unix

It is possible to change the default "diff" tool by opening the settings window: open the "Tool" menu and select the "Settings" item. 

The "OK" button validates and saves the changes. The new values will be taken into account between sessions until they are changed again. Those settings are specific to the current user and the current platform. The "Cancel" button is used to cancel any change performed in the window and to close it. The "Defaults" button is used to cancel any change and to go back to the initial values. The window remains opened.

The comparison is performed using the file contents that are registered in the SCM database and not those present in the workspaces' images. Therefore, when the workspaces' images are not refreshed, it is possible that the file contents that are displayed by the 'diff' tool are not those that can be found in the workspace's images.

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Selecting Object Changes To Import

By default, when the object changes are searched and then displayed, all of them are selected. If you don't want to import all the changes you can unselect some of them either

• by clicking on the check box to the left of the change
• or by opening the associated popup menu and selecting the item "Unselect for import"

Note that the select/unselect mechanism is recursive on the embedding nodes. For example, if you unselect a framework node, then all the changes concerning internal modules, directories or files will be unselected too.

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Specifying Target Trees

	A target tree is mandatory when importing a framework creation. If you omit it, you will have an error message when starting the import.
	To find the frameworks in concern, just look at the frameworks whose name is followed by a . This icon indicates that the creation of the framework is to be imported. In addition, when you click on the framework using the left button of the mouse information are displayed in the information pane: in the picture to the left, you can see that no target tree is specified yet.

Click on the framework using the right button of the mouse to open the associated popup menu and select the item "Select destination tree". Once the tree entered, it will be displayed in the information pane.

Note that the need to specify a target tree is not related to the fact that the frameworks in concern are already present in the target workspace or not. The Import Graphic Tool just shows the changes that appeared in the origin workspace, not what is missing in the target workspace. Therefore it is possible that the framework creations are shown because the origin date given to the tool is too old

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Running A Simulation

It is possible to run one import on the selected object changes and to see what should occur in a real import by looking at the resulting traces.

Here is a sample of such a simulation:

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Directory for Simulation

It is possible to specify a directory when running a simulation. In this case, the imported files will be projected in this directory.

To specify a directory, select the "Simulation directory..." item in the "Import" menu.

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Samples

Importing Fixes

The scenario is to import in a workspace what has been done in another workspace since its last promotion. This is a situation that can take place between two development workspaces or between a maintenance and a development workspace.

We can distinguish two cases: a first one where it is the first time the Import Graphic Tool is used and a second one where the tool is often used between the same workspaces.

First case

1. In the first workspace the user fixes a bug or writes a new functionality and possibly promotes his/her changes to the parent workspace
2. Then this user decides to import all the changes he/she made in the second workspace. The question is then to choose an appropriate date for selecting all the changes (because it could have taken a long time for doing them).
3. The answer can be to run the adl_ls_promo [1] command on the origin workspace to know the date of the previous promotion(*) since all the changes have a modification date more recent than this promotion date
4. Entering this promotion date in the Import Graphic Tool will display all changes to import in the target workspace.

(*) a multi-tree workspace can be promoted in a subset of the trees where it exists. In addition, a promotion request is registered only if there is something to promote from the workspace. That's why we can have different workspace revisions in each tree for a multi-tree workspace and that's why the users must choose themselves the appropriate date by looking at the result in each tree of the adl_ls_promo command.

Second case

1. The user always uses the same target workspace's image when importing modifications
2. Each time an import is launched from the tool, the date of this import is recorded in this target workspace's image
3. Each time the tool is started, the default date is the date of the last import, so it should be kept as the date since which all modifications should be retrieved (**)

(**) Note that we assume here that all modifications have been selected in the previous imports because those modifications won't be proposed using the default date.

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Creating A New Workspace

This is the case where a workspace has been used for a while for developing new functionalities but those functionnalities cannot be delivered in the workspace tree where this workspace exists - for instance because the tree turned in maintenance mode and a new tree has been created to receive developments for the next product releases.

As it is not possible to move a workspace between workspace trees, the solution could be to import all the changes made in this workspace in a new workspace created in the new workspace tree. If the first workspace was dedicated to those developments, we can choose its creation date as the date since which all changes must be transferred by the Import Graphic Tool. To know this date, run the adl_ls_ws_rev [2] command and looks at the first revision.

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References

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History

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