LabVIEW version control: comparing subversion - perforce

[Thom Borton]

Hello everybody

I am looking for a version control system for the use together with LV.
My first try was to use subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) and
it seems to work basically. When I there is a conflict, it generates a
note and copies adds a tag to the filename of the conflicting file. I
can then compare the differences of the two files with the LabVIEW
Compare function.

Now the question is, what can Perforce deliver, that subversion does not?

As vi's are binary, I guess there is not a lot perforce can do about
comparing versions. In the end Labview has to do that, no? And then I am
as well of with subversion as with perforce. Or am I totally wrong?

One thing/advantage is definitely that perfo
rce is integrated into the
LV IDE. But being a command line person, typing

> svn commit

is not an issue.

Oh, and besides, subversion is free software, perforce cost $750 per seat.

Thank you very much for every comment,

Thom


--
Thom Borton
Switzerland

[Thom Borton]

Okay, if nobody answers, then I will answer myself 🙂

Two days ago I installed subversion and moved all our LabVIEW VIs to the
repository. It's VERY usefull, especially if more than one person is
working on the same project. I think we have found our solution.

We currently develop our software on Windows XP and our subversion
server runs on a Linux machine.

Thom

Thom Borton wrote:

> Hello everybody
>
> I am looking for a version control system for the use together with LV.
> My first try was to use subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) and
> it seems to work basically. When I there is a conflict, it generates a
> note and copies adds a tag to the filename of the conflicting file. I
> can then compare the differences of the two files with the L
abVIEW
> Compare function.
>
> Now the question is, what can Perforce deliver, that subversion does not?
>
> As vi's are binary, I guess there is not a lot perforce can do about
> comparing versions. In the end Labview has to do that, no? And then I am
> as well of with subversion as with perforce. Or am I totally wrong?
>
> One thing/advantage is definitely that perforce is integrated into the
> LV IDE. But being a command line person, typing
>
> > svn commit
>
> is not an issue.
>
> Oh, and besides, subversion is free software, perforce cost $750 per seat.
>
> Thank you very much for every comment,
>
> Thom
>
>

--
Thom Borton
Switzerland

[Andreas_Fuerst]

Hello Thom,

we are now standing at the same problem as you one year ago.

We have evaluated MS Sourcesafe, cvs, Subversion and Perforce for the use with Labview.

We have to decide between Subversion and Perforce.

Do you have some experience now with Subversion/Labview ?

Our main requirement for a version control system is a function like the "Share" from Sourcesafe.

That means some developer works on a few main projects. Some components they want to use together like device drivers. These components should be versioned and the developers should have the possability to integrate the components in their main projects with a arbitrary version of the component.

In Subversion we can implement this with the externals property or a script which export the components unversioned. We have no possability found in Perforce yet.

I'm thankfully for any advice,

Andreas F.

[Ray.R]

We used Perforce as a revision control tool. (2001 - 2002)

It was okay to use with LV.  I do recall some problems with the fact that the vi's were binaries.  Also the check-in check-out process was a bit tricky (I can't remember exactly why).  Basically, as long as it was used as a repository, it was okay.  To store a snapshot of the code.  But when sharing a project with another developper, then that was a different story. 

I have never used subversion.  I'd like to read some feedback from your experiences. 

Thanks,

JLV

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Here's an NI document regarding Perforce, LV7, and XP:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/69EA27204D24F78586256E2400773ABE 

[Ray.R]

Thanks AK2DM,

Wow.. nice to know that we had made the right decision back then... 🙂  And yes, I recall that part of the selection was based on the fact that the firmware (and drivers and wrappers) was developped on a Solaris machine.

We did try MSuff SS as part of our search..  I seem to recall that it did not handle binaries with ease.. Too long ago to remember... and my memory flushed the details.  I did like MS-SS for pure C/C++ code storage (in Windows ONLY).  It was simpler to use. 

Perforce was okay to use.  Simple - once setup.

😄

[Andreas_Fuerst]

Hello,

now we use subversion with Labview about for 1 year. We are 5 developers and have about 12 projects, 1000 commits (revisions), 1000 files and the repository is about 1,2 GB. For the repository we use the berkley DB instead of the file based storage.

Up to now we had no problems and subversion works perfectly together with the Labview binary files.

The performance is a little bit slower than at perforce. For really big projects I would prefer perforce but for the most projects subversion should work well. The only disadvantage which really hurts is that you cannot track changes across branches very well.

I have written a small toolkit to make some important subversion actions from the Labview Menu (unlock, commit, add, graphical compare) and so on but I think we need this not really. Instead of this the most time we use TortoiseSVN, which integrates in Windows Explorer and the windows file dialog.

Regards,

Andreas.