Question

In a perforce depot I have an area containing stable branches, and an area containing unstable branches. I want to control a users ability to create new branches (using p4 integrate) within the stable area. So for example my depot is laid out like so:

//depot
       /stable
              stable_branch_1/...
              stable_branch_2/...
              ... (I want users to be stopped from integrating to here)
       /unstable
              unstable_branch_1/...
              unstable_branch_2/...
              ... (I want users to be able to integrate to here)

I’m aware that in the p4 permissions I can set something like:

=branch     user     *         * -//depot/stable/...

(c.f.) but this is the exact opposite of what I need (i.e. bans users from using stable as a source for integrations, rather than a target).

I’m very surprised that it doesn’t seem possible to do what I want without resorting to using triggers, can anyone provide any suggestions?

Edit: Just to make clear I wan’t users to continue to be able to write to the stable folder, I just want to prevent an integrate operation being performed with the stable folder as a target.

Answer 1

Ok,
combining the collective wisdom here and from our Perforce admin, I’d suggest the following:

write    user    *    *    -//depot/stable/...
write    user    *    *     //depot/stable/existing/branchA
write    user    *    *     //depot/stable/existing/branchB

i.e. take away write-rights from the stable-depot and then re-grant it again. Also, it is important to note the difference between =write and write. The first one grants exactly write-rights (and nothing else, no read, no sync, no nothing), the latter one grants write-rights and all lower level rights (e.g. read, sync).