Azure DevOps Server: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:53, 27 November 2007

Revision as of 21:05, 10 December 2007

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Team Foundation Server provides a [[source control]] repository, called ''Team Foundation Version Control'' (TFVC). Unlike Microsoft's previous source control offering, [[Visual SourceSafe]] (VSS), which relied on a file-based storage mechanism, Team Foundation source control stores all code, as well as a record of all changes and current check-outs in a SQL Server database. It supports features such as multiple simultaneous check-outs, conflict resolution, shelving and unshelving (shelving is a way to save a set of pending changes without committing them to source control, while still making them available to other users), [[Branching_%28software%29|branching]] and merging, and the ability to set security levels on any level of a source tree, alongside the most visible features of document versioning, locking and rollback. The source control mechanism integrates with Team System's work items as well; when a check-in (termed "changeset") occurs, a developer can choose to have their code associated with one or more specific work items, to indicate what the check-in works towards solving specific issues. TFS administrators can enforce check-in policies that require Code Analysis requirements to have passed, as well as to enforce the association of check-ins with work items, or update the state of associated work items (like flagging a bug as "fixed" when checking in code that has the bug fixed). Individual versions of files can be assigned labels, and all files with the same label forms a release group. Unlike VSS, TFS source control repository does not support linking to an item from multiple places in the source folder structure, nor does it allow an item to be "pinned" (allow different references to the same file from different directories to point to different versions in a way that cannot be further edited).

TFVC supports [[Branching_%28software%29|branching]] at entire source code level as well as individual files and directory levels as well, with each branch being maintained individually. Multiple branches can be merged together, with the in built in conflict resolution algorithm merging the changes between two branches of the same file where it can automatically reconcile the differences or flagging them for manual inspection if it cannot. Merge can be performed at "changeset" level as well, instead of the branch level. A successful merge is automatically checked out in the souce control repository.

TFVC is not limited to source code only, but using the [[Windows SharePoint Services]] infrastructure it is built on, it provides a version-controlled library for other documents in the project as well, including project plans, requirements and feature analysis documents among others. All documents in the source controlled repository can be linked with any work item, and access to them can be controlled by defining access policies.