Using Version Control Systems

Version control is used in a collaborative project environment that involves sharing of source code and binary files. Though version control system is primarily used in environments where there is more than one developer, a single developer can also use the version control system to track and remember changes. Using version control allows extensive modifications to be made and then go back to a previous version.

Team coordination Making sure, by default, that only one person at a time is modifying a file. This prevents files from accidentally being replaced by another user's changes. Your administrator can change this default to allow multiple simultaneous checkouts of a single file, while still preventing overwrites of other changes.

Version tracking Archiving and tracking old versions of source code and other files, which can be retrieved for bug tracking and other purposes.

Cross-platform development Tracking portability issues involved in maintaining one code base across multiple development platforms.

Reusable or object-oriented code Tracking which programs use which modules so that code can be reused.

Old versions of the source file can be easily retrieved and the exact changes viewed.

Store all the versions of a file in a single file in a way that only stores the differences between versions and not the physical files.

Allows the developers to work in their local files, and merges all the work when each developer is done.

Version Control in Studio works by plugging in an available CVS (Concurrent Versions System) or VSS (Visual Source Safe) Client. Studio currently integrates with CVS and SourceSafe. CVS is a freely downloadable version control software on the Internet, and SourceSafe can be bought from Microsoft. Once integrated, Studio can record the history of the source files in your application with CVS or SourceSafe.

The Desk includes the EJB and Web components and also the meta files maintained by Studio. The meta-files are required for Express Development to work in Studio. The bean.xml file (for each bean) contains all the meta information of the specific bean. The bean.xml file is named as bean file name - remote file name with an .xml extension. This file is stored in the same directory structure as the bean. The bean.xml files are by default added to the Desk, and all the SourceSafe operations can be performed on these files.

For any further information on downloading CVS and other CVS topics, see www.cyclic.com and www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs-index.html.