PowerBuilder provides third-party SCC providers with an extension to the SCC API that allows them to enhance the integration of their products with PowerBuilder. Typically, calls to the SccDiff method are required to determine if an object is out of sync with the SCC repository. (This is not required for Perforce and ClearCase.)
However, SCC providers can implement SccQueryInfoEx as a primary file comparison method instead of SccDiff. The SccQueryInfoEx method returns the most recent version number for each object requested. This allows PowerBuilder to compare the version number associated with the object in the PBL with the version number of the tip revision in the SCC repository in order to determine whether an object is in sync.
Since SccQueryInfoEx is a much simpler request than SccDiff, the performance of the PowerBuilder IDE improves noticeably when this feature is implemented by the SCC provider. For these providers, the SccDiff call is used as a backup strategy only when a version number is not returned on an object in the repository. Also for these providers, the version number for registered files can be displayed in the Library painter.
For more information on viewing the version number, see “Controlling columns that display in the List view”.
Once the new API method is implemented in an SCC provider DLL and exported, PowerBuilder automatically begins to use the SCCQueryInfoEx call with that provider. The SccQueryInfoEx method is currently used by PBNative.
For source control systems that support the SccQueryInfoEx method, you can manually override the version number of local files, but only for PowerScript objects, and only when you are connected to source control.
This can be useful with source control systems that allow you to check out a version of an object that is not the tip revision. However, the source control system alone decides the version number of the tip revision when you check a file back into source control. It is the version returned by the source control system that gets added to the PBC file for the workspace and to the PBLs in the local directory.
For more information about the PBC file, see “Working in offline mode”.
You change the local version number for a source-controlled PowerScript object in its Properties dialog box, which you access from the object’s pop-up menu in the System Tree or the Library painter. If the source control system for the workspace supports the SccQueryInfoEx method and you are connected to source control, the Properties dialog box for a source-controlled PowerScript object (other than a PBT) has an editable SCC Version text box. The SCC Version text box is grayed if the source control system does not support the SccQueryInfoEx method or if you are not connected to source control.
