A few questions about working with writable Xlinks in Plastic SCM

Question

I need some information about working with writable Xlinks.

I have two projects, let's call them Project A and Project B.

Each project has its own repository: Repo A; and Repo B. Each project also has its own workspace: C:\Projects\Project A; and C:\Projects\Project B;

Project B references Project A, so I created a writable Xlink in Project B's workspace to reference Project A, setting the 'XLink target changeset' to the last changeset in Project A. I did my check-ins and updates and the code from Project A now appears in a folder under Project B: C:\Projects\Project B\Project A. All that apprears to be working as expected.

However, when I made changes to Project A (in Project A's workspace) and checked them in, the Xlink did not change. I then edited the Xlink and updated the 'Xlink target changeset' to the new last changeset in Project A, did my check-in and update, and then it pulled the latest code from Project A into the folder under Project B.

So I have a few of questions:

What do I have to do to get the Xlink to show as changed?

When working on Project A, should I be working in Project A's workspace (C:\Projects\Project A), or should I be working on the Project A code in Project B's workspace (C:\Projects\Project B\Project A)?

Assuming that I am making changes to Project A in Project B's workspace, do I even need a workspace for Project A?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The xlink is an static object, so right now, it's not able to track newest changes in the target changeset branch (Project A).

You need to evolve the Project A repository using the Project B repository. So, in your case, you need to work through Project B to make changes under Project A.

As you may know if you create a new branch in Project B and then you perform changes under C:\Projects\Project B\Project A a new branch will be automatically created in the Project A repository to hold the changes, and even more, if you merge the Project B task branch the Project A task branch will be also automatically merged.

Here you have a blog post talking about your scenario: http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-link-repositories-using-xlinks.html