index > Team Foundation Server - General > Working on a different branch

Working on a different branch

Can someone advise me on the best way to work on a different branch?
Here is my scenario.

I have a main trunk and branch created off this trunk for a previous release.
I now want to work on the branch.
What is the best way of achieving this? Can it be done with workspaces?

Regards
Ian

Ian1971

You can map both branches into the same workspace, or use separate workspaces. It doesn't really matter.

Richard Berg MSFT

Richard Berg MSFT wrote:
You can map both branches into the same workspace, or use separate workspaces. It doesn't really matter.

I guess I'm not understanding workspaces correctly. I was thinking I could have two workspaces where in one the main trunk pointed at my c:\project\src folder and another workspace where the branch pointed at that same location so that I could switch between the two. Team Explorer doesn't let me do this though.

Ian1971

You could mimic the repository structure on your local drive and have the mappings in one workspace. That way, you can work on the branch separately to your main line and vice versa.

Joe Sango

My initial thought was to mimic the repositry structure, but what I was hoping to avoid was having to set up a web application with a different name in IIS everytime I create a new branch, so that I could just have the one virtual root set up in IIS but switch the code to the branch as and when required. I was thinking of something similar to the Subversion "switch" command as described in this article http://blogs.vertigosoftware.com/teamsystem/archive/2006/01/18/Shelving_and_Branching.aspx

Ian1971

One way you could do this is to map that root directory under a drive letter and then map the branch to the new drive letter. This will effectively allow you to have two repository paths mapped to a single machine path. You'll have to deal with making sure you check-in, shelve without keeping changes etc. or be prepared for all the warnings about writable files.

I think Buck Hodges did a blog entry to this affect. Let me see if I can locate it...

On second thought... no I didn't read that in Buck's blog and it hit me as to why. It just won't work well (or at all any many many case) not only for the reasons I listed above but many things just don't work well (or at all) on mapped drives. One most significant is a web project which is exactly what you are discussing. I haven't tried a _Web Application_ project versus the original Visual Studio 2005 web project but either way....

I was wrong.

Principal Consultant, Magenic -- http://blogs.manicprogrammer.com/michaelruminer

Michael Ruminer

The best way I have found so far, is to do the following:
1) Unbind the Solution and all projects
2) Change the workspace to point at the branch
3) Rebind the solution and all projects choosing the branch location

Initially I thought I would only have to do 2), but I kept finding that Visual Studio was adding in the old workspace path when I tried to open the project. The unbind - bind seems to solve that.

Ian1971

If you do that (sounds dangerous...) make sure you run Get otherwise you won't actually be working on the correct files.

Richard Berg MSFT

Never thought about the bind issue. Good point. I too would have assumed number 2) alone would have worked. Can you tell I don't do much web development??

And, oh yes, all these workarounds are definately rife with ways to screw it up for yourself, as Richard aptly pointed out. A big mea culpa on that.

Principal Consultant, Magenic -- http://blogs.manicprogrammer.com/michaelruminer

Michael Ruminer

After thinking about it some more I have to recommend you not use the above steps. If the sln/project structure changes at all between the two branches you could really screw things up. Try this:

File -> Close Solution
Edit your workspace mappings
Get Latest
Reopen the solution from disk

Richard Berg MSFT

That seems to do the job. I just needed to close the solution first and do a get latest on the whole tree...can't imagine why I didn't close the solution anyway.

Thanks!
Ian

Ian1971

reply 11