Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

• For more information about merging, see “How to: Merge Files and Folders” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181428(VS.80).aspx
• For additional descriptions of how to branch and merge in Visual Studio 2005, see
“Branching and Merging Team Foundation Source Control” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181423(VS.80).aspx
How to Perform a Merge
Use the merge command to integrate changes from one branch into another. To perform
a merge, you can use the merge functionality in Source Control Explorer, or you can use
the tf merge command line. You can merge by changeset, label, date, or version. To start
a merge, right-click the branch in Source Control Explorer and then click Merge. The
Source Control Merge Wizard allows you to choose the target branch with which to
merge.
Depending on your branch structure, you might need to merge changes up the branch
hierarchy, down the hierarchy, or across the hierarchy. If you are merging across the
hierarchy, you are performing a baseless merge and you must use the tf merge command
line, because you cannot do this with Visual Studio. A baseless merge allows you to
merge files and folders that do not have a branch/merge relationship. After a baseless
merge, a merge relationship exists and future merges are not baseless. You still need to
execute the merges from the command line, but the number of merge conflicts will be
reduced.
Keep the following in mind when performing merges:
• Merging along the hierarchy—from parent to child or from child to parent—
results in fewer conflicts than merging across the hierarchy.
• The branch hierarchy is based on the branch parent and branch child, which might
be different from the physical structure of what you see in Source Control
Explorer; for example:
o Physical structure:
• Development –Development branch
• Main – Integration branch
• Releases – Container for release branches
• Release 1 – Release Branch
o Logical structure:
• Main
• Development
• Release 1
Additional Resources
• For more information about merging, see “Understanding Merging” at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181427(VS.80).aspx
• For a walkthrough describing how to perform a merge, see “How to: Merge Files and
Folders” at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181428(VS.80).aspx