Accurev externally, git internally

Question

I’m working on a project using Accurev as a VCS. Since I’m not at all familiar with it, I’m wondering if it would be a good idea to use git “internally” - meaning I would use git locally, then doing the “official” commits with Accurev.

Would this be an OK approach?

If yes, I would naturally want to exclude git from the Accurev versioning. Is it sufficient to have a .acignore that looks something like this:

myproject/.git
myproject/.git/*
myproject/.gitignore

Thanks!

Answer 1

Options:

1) You might want to look into AccuRev's GitCentric interface. It will allow you to work in Git and have your content show up in AccuRev, or vice versa. This doesn't directly answer your question, but provides you a way to work in a tool you're familiar with.

2) If you're unfamiliar with AccuRev, they do sponsor monthly end user training sessions for free. You can sign up for the Online Instructor-led Training. The AccuRev commands you'll need most often are: keep, promote, update and merge. Again not a direct answer, but learning is a life time goal or struggle depending on your prospective.

3) Using .acignore files to keep the Git files out of AccuRev would work. The .acignore files are designed to allow you to keep files not being managed by AccuRev, noted as "(external)", from being acted upon.

You said "I’m wondering if it would be a good idea to use git “internally” - meaning I would use git locally, then doing the “official” commits with Accurev." That's the joy and freedom of being a developer... you certainly can do that if you choose. You'll need to be careful as Git will not be the official source of record, but instead AccuRev has that role. You may find yourself having to do many merges if you don't keep your AccuRev workspace current via the update command.

If you do use GitCentric, then AccuRev will be the offical source of record at your site, but you'll be able to use Git for all of your work.

Please do respond with your path forward as I'm sure there are many curious developers out there who may want to know.

David

Answer 2

You should be able to use git and AccuRev side-by-side. You mignt need to tune your .acignore, though.
From the AccuRev Help files:

Examples

A simple wild card pattern such as “*.doc” that is specified globally matches any of these names:

docs/chap01.doc
docs/manuals/chap01.doc
docs/widgetproj/src/manuals/usergd/chap01.doc

The pattern manuals/*.doc specified in docs/.acignore matches any of these names:

docs/manuals/chap01.doc
docs/manuals/chap02.doc

... but not these names:

docs/manuals/usergd/src/chap01.doc
docs/widgetproj/src/manuals/usergd/chap01.doc

However, using ** to specify recursion as in manuals/***/*.doc or manuals/**/chap.doc will match any occurrence of *.doc or chap.doc in any directory underneath the docs/manuals directory. See Wildcards in Ignore Patterns on page 12 for more information on using **.