Any tips for handling 2 versions of the same file?

[JimG]

Based on the problem below, is there a better solution when using Vault? Does Vault have some way of keeping track of 2 separate files that are named the same? I doubt it but figure it's worth asking!

Problem
With coldfusion, we have one or more Application.cfm files for a given application. In most cases, the content of Application.cfm in production will vary from the Application.cfm in development in order to function properly in development. These files are within our application folders. What we don't want to happen is to accidentally replace the file in production with the development version or vice versa (can't test in development unless we add code in the files, and won't operate properly in production with that additional code).

Possible Solution
The only option I see is to create a copy of the production file as Application_Prod.cfm and not load in the Application.cfm from development. Then when the application server administrator retrieves all the files for a given Label from Vault in order to move it to production, he/she Gets the files and puts them into a staging area, searches the folder for any files with "_Prod" in them, removes the "_Prod" from those file names, and then copies all files into production.

[lbauer]

How are you moving things from Dev to Production? Are you using Merge Branches, or some other method?

[JimG]

We're storing a single copy in Vault. For our intranet files, we have a folder called Intranet and we place the application folder that contains all the code to run the intranet application under the Intranet folder. Take a look at my attached screen print to see what I mean since I don't think I can explain it clearly (a picture is worth a thousand words!).

You can see the Application_Prod.cfm file right at the top. If I were to name it appropriately as Application.cfm, I run the risk of overwriting my development version if I Get Latest Version, etc.

We're a small shop with only 12 programmers and almost never work on the same files...in fact no one else works on my applications, so I hadn't considered Branching. We assign backup programmers in case we're out and something major happens. We aren't setup as Dev-Test-Production but rather Dev-Production (we pretty much do all the testing ourselves since the client/users frequently won't take responsibility to do so (that's State Government for ya).

With that description, does Branching make sense? I can see that as a way to make it work...we would just never merge the Application.cfm file from the Branch to Production...?

[lbauer]

You could try merge branches. The merge tool will attempt to merge all items in the change sets you select, but you could deselect the Application_cfm file so that it does not merge.

[JimG]

Thanks Linda.

I spent some time playing around with the Branches function just today and came to the same conclusion. I think we may go this route.

[lbauer]

Let us know if you have further questions about this.