Setting working directories for repositories

You must map a repository to a working directory before you can work with files. When you get or check out files, they are saved in the working directory.

Repositories and working directories serve different purposes.

  • A repository is part of the Surround SCM database managed by the Surround SCM Server. A repository often reflects the directory structure of a project. Repositories organize and group files and subrepositories.
  • A working directory is the local folder on your hard drive that a repository is mapped to. The working directory generally mirrors the repository structure. The working directory is generally mapped to a local drive directory, but can be mapped to a different location, such as a network drive.
You can also manage working directories with the working directory editor. See Configuring working directories.

1. Select the repository to set the working directory for.

2. Choose Repository > Set Working Directory.

The Set Working Directory dialog box opens.

3. Enter a Working directory path or click Browse to select a directory.

4. Select Allow child repositories to inherit this working directory if you want child repositories to use the same directory.

The working directory is set automatically when subrepositories are added. For example, if the repository structure is MyProject/src/lib/common and you set the working directory for the MyProject repository to C:\MyProject, the resulting working directory is C:\MyProject\src\lib\common.

5. Select Inherit working directory from parent to use the parent repository’s working directory.

The working directory is set as <parent’s path> \ <repository name>.

6. Select Get files to working directory to retrieve a copy of the files to the working directory.

Files in subrepositories are also copied to local directories if the Allow child repositories to inherit this working directory option is selected. If the local directories do not exist, you are prompted to create them. See Creating local directories.

7. Click OK to set the working directory.

You are prompted to resolve conflicts if you reuse a working directory. Click Remove to remove the existing setting and switch the working directory to the new repository. Click Don't Remove to keep the existing setting and then select a directory not used for other repositories.

We recommend setting working directories to a hard drive local to the Surround SCM desktop client or CLI to avoid permission issues. On a Windows computer, setting a working directory to a Samba share can result in permission issues depending on the configuration of ACL support on the Samba share. Specifying a network share for a working directory can have similar issues because the share may use a NAS or Samba on the server side. In these situations, the Surround SCM client on Windows may not be able to properly update the .MySCMServerInfo file when the Unix-based network share marks the file as hidden or read-only.

A working directory should be specific to an individual Surround SCM user, so using a network location shared by other users is not recommended. To allow other users to view the files, consider using shadow folders in Surround SCM. See Configuring shadow folders.