How heavyweight is branching?

[CdrJameson]

Hello,

I'm potentially interested in branching a large project while a feature is being implemented.
Once the feature is done, the branch would be re-integrated.

My question is does a branch just save the differences from the trunk, or does it copy the whole project to the branch?

The feature/branch will only change a few bits of the project, (less than 0.01%, but it might be all over the place, so no branching just a single folder), and so this is only a viable approach if the branching is pretty lightweight.

If not, its not a disaster as I'll make do with the shelving system, but it'd be nice if I could keep the changesets genuinely separate.

Ta

CdrJ

[lbauer]

Branching does make a copy of the entire project. After you make changes to the branch, you can merge those changes into the trunk. You can continue to use the branch for "patches" or delete it. ( Note: We don't recommend obliterating items if you think you might want to do a Folder Export\Import in the future. Obliterate permanently removes history, and since the Export\Import tool needs to recreate history, an obliterate can cause it to fail.)

Branches are somewhat lightweight because file history is not duplicated. Any history prior to the branch comes from the trunk.

This discussion might be helpful:
http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic ... 30&t=11438