Practical Perforce

Glossary

This glossary lists terms used in this book, and their meanings, as used in this book. Many of these terms have subtly different meanings elsewhere; that is the nature of the abstract and subjective language of software configuration management.

auto-resolve

Automatically resolving files in a batch. (As opposed to resolving them interactively, one by one.)

body of code

A mainline and all the codelines branched from it.

branch

A set of files evolving as a variant of another set of files. To branch is to clone a set of files so that it can be modified independently of its original.

branch view

An object in the Perforce database that can be used to store donor and target filespecs used in branching and other operations.

build

In SCM jargon, the result of building software from source files.

build tool

A program that converts source files into usable software.

changelist

In Perforce, a collection of files checked in together.

changelist number

The unique indentifier of a changelist. It is also a revision number that refers to a snapshot of the entire depot at the time the changelist was submitted.

cherry-picking

Integrating changes from one codeline into another in a way that skips over some of the changes in the donor codeline.

client spec

Perforce-speak for client workspace specification, the parameters that define your workspace.

client workspace

See workspace.

clone

Occasionally used in this book to mean copying one set of depot files to another.

codeline

A branch, but more particularly, a branch ...