Chapter 4. Versioning Your Projects

• Setting up CVS in NetBeans IDE

• Checking Out Sources from a CVS Repository

• Putting a Project into CVS

• Keeping Track of Changes

• Updating Files

• Committing Changes

• Ignoring Files in CVS Operations

• Adding and Removing Files from a Repository

• Working with Branches

• Working with Patches

• Working with Versioning Histories

• Working with Other Version Control Systems

USING A VERSION CONTROL SYSTEM (VCS) to share your projects and integrate contributions from multiple developers is one of the most important parts of working in a group development environment. In NetBeans IDE, version control functionality is integrated right into your daily work flow, so you do not have to keep switching to the command line or an external tool to perform updates and commit local changes.

You can choose to share just your sources or to share the NetBeans projects with which you are working. When you check the NetBeans project metadata into the repository, other developers who are working on the project in NetBeans IDE do not have to go through the trouble of setting up the projects themselves they can just check out the projects and start working immediately.

Version control support in the IDE provides:

• Display of VCS status in the IDE

• Ability to run VCS commands on files from within the IDE

• Tools to help you check in changes to the repository and merge between branches

• Advanced tools for searching file version history and viewing differences between file revisions

The IDE provides its most comprehensive support for Concurrent Versioning System (CVS), with versioning actions integrated into the IDE's project system.

In addition to the "projects-aware" CVS support, you can download support for a wide range of version control systems, from Subversion to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, via the Update Center. See Working with Other Version Control Systems later in this chapter for more information.