Chapter 19. Source Control

IN THIS CHAPTER

• The Basics of Team Foundation Source Control

• Getting Started with Team Foundation Source Control

• Editing Files Under Source Control

• Branching and Merging

This chapter covers source control with Visual Studio Team System: specifically, the source control system and repository provided by Team Foundation Server and its integration with Visual Studio.

The premise of source control is relatively simple: On a software project, there is a need to centrally store and control access to the files that constitute the core artifacts. In other words, a source control system centrally manages access not just to source code files, but also to any other file-based artifact produced during the execution of the project. These artifacts could include items such as requirements documents, network diagrams, and test plans.

Note

The terms source control and version control are synonymous, at least as far as this book is concerned. Although the term version control is in some ways preferable because it alludes to the fact that there is more than just source code being controlled, we use the term source control in this chapter so that we conform to the majority of the MSDN documentation on team systemseven though the source control database in the Team Foundation Server data tier is, ironically, named TfsVersionControl.

The job of a source control system can be broken down into the following responsibilities:

• It centrally stores files in a secure and reliable fashion.

• It provides a way to bundle sets of file versions together to constitute a "release."

• It allows multiple users to interact with the same file at the same time through the concepts of check-in, check-out, and merging.

• It keeps track of which changes were made to a file, who made them, when they were made, and why.

The source control system that ships as part of Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio handles all those requirements and more. It is a robust client/server-based solution specifically targeted at the source control needs of large, enterprise-level development teams.