Agent Git

The PowerBuilder settings tweaks described here can be used to improve performance.

While the tweaks above apply to Agent SVN, those same setting changes also apply when using PowerBuilder with AgentGit.

Finally the PowerBuilder SccDiffStrategy settings should be set to one of the values shown below:

      04 - Examines the SCC_STATUS_OUTOFDATE bit from the SccQueryInfo command to determine which objects are out of sync
      08 - Compares the source code in the target PBLs with object files in the local project path
      12 - A combination of both these settings

More details on that PowerBuilder setting can be found in the Comparison Strategy section of this page.

The tutorial below describes how to use PowerBuilder 2025 with Agent Git.

For a better understanding on how PowerBuilder interacts with the source control refer to the links below:

Step 1: Setting up an Example Project

The example project used in this tutorial can be found here: https://github.com/Appeon/PowerBuilder-Example

To get this project use the Dos Shell button found in the Agent Git configuration utility as shown below:

In the resulting command prompt run these command:

md c:\Projects
cd c:\Projects
git clone https://github.com/Appeon/PowerBuilder-Example.git

This will create the following folder containing all the PowerBuilder artifacts:

c:\Projects\PowerBuilder-Example

Start PowerBuilder and use the File Open Workspace/Solution menu to open the project found in that folder.

NOTE: After opening the project PowerBuilder will migrate the project to the latest version.

Use the Agent Git Configuration utility to do the once off configuration of the plug-in.

You can use this dialog to configure the behaviour of the plug-in.

Step 2: Binding the Example Project to Agent Git

For Agent Git to work it needs to know the location of the .git folder for the project.

This step is referred to as binding the Power Builder project is bound to the .git folder using Agent Git.

The fact this project was clone means a .git folder already exists in the project folder.

However, Agent Git still needs to be told the location of this folder.

To do this, right click on the solution and select the properties menu as shown below:

In the resulting dialog select the Agent Git option and then press the binding '...' button as shown below:

This will present the binding dialog shown below:

In that dialog supply a project name and the location of the .git folder for the project.

The project name is not of importance and can be any value you like, but the folder selected must contain the .git folder.

Also this .git folder must be in the foot folder of the PowerBuilder project itself.

In this case the .git folder will exist, but in the case that the .git folder does not exist, you will be prompted to create the folder.

Step 3: Adding the Project Artifacts to Source Control

At this point the project has been added to source control but the artifacts of the project still need to be added.

Right click on the project and use the Add to Source Control menu to complete this process as shown below:

Eventually this dialog will be presented:

Add a comment and use the Ok button to add all the artifacts to source control.

NOTE: These two steps can take some time to complete, as all the items need to be added to source control.

At this point tall the items have now been added to source control:

Step 4: Using the Source Control Inside PowerBuilder

At this stage the workspace and all it's items have been imported into the repository and the workspace has also been bound to the repository.

To access the source control from inside PowerBuilder use the popup menu as shown below:

For example below is an example of an item being checked out for edit and then making a change to the file:

Checking in the change:

And then viewing the change history for the item:

IMPORTANT NOTE: If these source control menus are disabled, check the machine for duplicate copies of PowerBuilder pb*.dll files.

With the workspace now fully configured, you can now use the check-out, check-in, file compare commands (or any of the other source control commands) to manage your workspace files.

For more information, this link describes how to get the best out of source control from inside the PowerBuilder IDE.