How to branch individual file or files

durkinc · Post by **durkinc** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:06 pm

I have two parallel versions of a project which I've set up using the share command. The goal is to be able to maintain a Visual Studio 2005 version and a Visual Studio 2008 version, where only the files necessary to support using different IDEs are different. All the source code is the same, so I don't want to duplicate any of those files.

I have something like this set up:

vs2005
- proj1
-- proj1.vbproj
-- module1.vb

vs2008
- proj1
-- proj1.vbproj
-- module1.vb

When I converted the project the .vbproj file changed, so I need to branch that file. However, I do not want to branch all the other files in the folder. I created the share by sharing the top-level solution folder because I didn't want to have to go in and individually share every file.

The problem is, it appears there is no way to branch individual files. When I try to do it I get an error that says the file already exists in the target folder. I can't delete the file from the folder, because that deletes it from the original location too since it is shared.

SourceSafe supports this easily. When you branch a file it copies the file to both shared locations. Am I correct that there is no way to do this in Vault? If so, it seems like a serious design flaw. It makes the share/branch commands pretty useless. If branching an individual file that was shared via a folder cannot be supported there should at least be a way to recursively share all files within a folder individually, instead of having to select each one.

lbauer · Post by **lbauer** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:30 pm

When you share a folder, the contents of each shared folder are identical and any change made to one folder is reflected in the other. The files are secondarily shared.

What you need in this case, where some files in the folder will be different, is to have two different folders with the files shared as primary shares.

If you project is too large to easily do this manually, we have a tool that can share files within folders, like VSS does. Email support@ at sourcegear.com ATTN Linda if you'd like a copy.