Kategorie: computer

At work we use Serena Dimensions for Version Control.
Double-clicking a sourcefile opens the code in the editor of your choice, but unfortunately Dimensions doesn’t provide a meaningful filename as the clicked element is downloaded to a temporary file and the editor shows just the name of the temporary file.

After requesting an improvement in the Dimensions community i got some great hints from Paul Caruana and finally implemented the following workaround:

• Create a batch file

  echo off 
  set dimexe="c:program files (x86)serenadimensions 12.2cmprogdmcli"
  set ueexe="c:program files (x86)ultraedituedit32"
  set fi=%2
  set fi=%fi:"=%
  set ver=%3
  set ver=%ver:"=%
  set typ=%5
  set typ=%typ:"=%
  set tmpfile=C:tmp%fi%.%ver%.%typ%
  
  echo parms: %* 
  echo file: %fi% 
  %dimexe% FI %1 /USER_FILENAME="%tmpfile%" /EXPAND /OVERWRITE 
  %ueexe% %tmpfile%
  

• Create a new „Tool“ inside Dimensions:
•  Menu „Tools“ -> „“Customize Menu and Toolbar“; Tab „Tools“ -> Create a new Tool (Star-Button), choose a name (e.g. „MyEdit“).
  Configuration: 
• Command: C:fooprojectscmeditcmedit.cmd
• Arguments: $[Specification] $[Filename] $[Revision] $(Product):$(Workset) $[type]
• Start In: c:foo

This gives me a „MyEdit“ Entry in the Context Menu which downloads the file & launches Ultraedit with a meaningful filename – Mission accomplished!

At work we use Serena Dimensions for Version Control.
Dimensions seems to use „pvcsmerge“ for Diff-view which is imho a bit out-of-date regarding functionality and usability.

My personal favorite would be BeyondCompare, but i have no budget for buying such stuff, so i looked into a way to integrate Kdiff3 (imho next-best) into Serena Dimensions.

I did some investigation and finaly came to the conclusion that calling „Diff“ lets Dimensions download the Files-to-be-diff’ed to temporary files and call „pvcsmerge“ with those files.

So i created an executable that takes the same parameter as „pvcsmerge,“ but launches Kdiff3 with reformated parameters.
Replacing the original „pvcsmerge.exe“ with the homebrewn executable provided exactly the functionality i wanted!

Implementation (feedback welcome, but pls. don’t flame me because of the poor C :-)):

Source:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <windows.h>

main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   int c;
   char ch;
   
     // file contains the name of the files-to-be-compared
   char* filename;
   filename = argv[2];
   
   FILE *fi = fopen(filename, „r“);
   #define MAXLINE 200
   char bufr[MAXLINE];
   char para[MAXLINE];
   char value[MAXLINE];
   char v1 [MAXLINE];
   char v2 [MAXLINE];
   char n1 [MAXLINE];
   char n2 [MAXLINE];

   if(fi != NULL) {
     while( !feof(fi)) {
       // String2parse: <para>=<value>
       fscanf(fi, „%[^=] %*c %sn“, para, value);
       
       if (strcmp(para, „ANCESTOR“) == 0) {
         // String2parse: „C:UsersxxxxxAppDataLocalTempSRC(yyyyy)_12.pt1646c2.tmp“,“SRC(yyyyy);12 – Derivative“
         sscanf( value, „“%[^“]“,“%[^“]““, v1, n1);
       }
       
       if (strcmp(para, „DERIVATIVES“) == 0) {
         sscanf( value, „“%[^“]“,“%[^“]““, v2, n2);
       }
     }
        
   } else {
   }
   
   // start kdiff3  
   char start[1024];
   strcpy (start, „c:\xxxxxx\kdiff3\kdiff3.exe „);
   strcat (start, v1);
   strcat (start, “ „);
   strcat (start, v2);
   strcat (start, “ –L1 „);
   strcat (start, n1);
   strcat (start, “ –L2 „);
   strcat (start, n2);
   system(start);
      
   return 0;
}

Compile (i’m using mingw):
gcc pvcsmerge.c -o pvcsmerge.exe