"File not Found" when loading saved workspace

[durwood]

Have Perforce integrated, do a file comparison on head revision and some specific changelist, and save your workspace ...

It appears that when this happens the actual files are retrieved to a "temp" cache which, at some unknown time, goes away and reloading of your workspace results in 'File not Found' errors and refreshing the tab does not help.

Typically the files will be listed as something like:
/.../perforce_workspace_name.myperforceserver_1666/depot/foo#head.c
/.../perforce_workspace_name.myperforceserver_1666/depot/foo#12345.c

The errors will be something like this when a refresh is attempted:
File Not Found (/private/tmp/myusername(p4v)/perforce_workspace_name_1666/depot/foo#head.c)
File Not Found (/private/temp/myusername(p4v)/perforce_workspace_name_1666/depot/foo$12345.c)

THINGS TO NOTE:
- I'm using a mac -- not sure if this is a mac-specific problem, perforce problem or general refresh problem
- This does NOT happen immediately .. i'm guessing it happens when some event causes the cache to clear .. it often is the next day before i am unable to see the saved workspace diffs.

[Aaron]

Hello,

This sounds like expected behavior based on Perforce. Most version control's generate a pair of temp files when the diff command is executed, and those temp files are deleted once the diff program is closed. BC3 can save a currently open session as a session or workspace, but this only saves the location of the files compared (which, in this case, point to the temp files).

If you wish to compare the files later, you will need to have Perforce regenerate the diff. Alternatively, you could save a copy of these files on your harddrive, but these wouldn't be connected to the version control in any way.

Some version controls store files locally (and not need to generate temp versions), but these are less common.

[Lutz]

I can confirm this behaviour using Subversion.

Some high-end VCS (like ClearCase, I think it is) can provide every version on the fly with a special structured (unique, but not temporary) filename. It has been possible for me to search for a modified line of code directly in the history from UltraEdit. But this only worked on so-called dynamic views. Behaviour in snapshot views compare to Subversion or Perforce, I think.