Source Code Control

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Iron Speed Designer detects that you’re using source code control, and when appropriate, alerts you to check out specific files from your source code control system so you don’t overwrite someone else’s work who is also working on the same project.  Most source code control systems mark files as read-only when they are ‘checked in’ or under control of the source code control system.  Accordingly, when Iron Speed Designer encounters a read-only file that it needs to open, save or create, it will optionally cancel the operation and alert you the file may be under source control.

Iron Speed Designer alerts you when source controlled files should be checked out.

Iron Speed Designer does not have a built-in source code control system nor does it directly interface with source code control products.  Instead, you typically use a commercially available source code control product such as Source Safe, Team Developer, SVN or similar product in conjunction with Iron Speed Designer.

Option

Description

Alert you when files need to be checked out

Suspend or cancel the file operation and display an alert message indicating which files are marked as read-only.  You may then check out the files from your source code control system and then re-run the operation again in Iron Speed Designer.

Overwrite read-only files without asking

Reset the read-only flag and continue with the operation.  For example, code generation will continue in order to ensure the code produced can be compiled.

Approaches to source code control

There are two general approaches to source code control: developer-centric and server-centric.  In the developer-centric approach advocated by Iron Speed Designer, developers have a local copy of the application and the source code and run the application on their local machines.  In the server-centric approach, all developers "deploy" to the same server.

Most developers using Iron Speed Designer also use source code control systems to coordinate development between multiple developers working on a project so they do not destroy each other’s work by accidentally overwriting it.  While Iron Speed Designer does not directly integrate with any particular source code control system, such as PVCS or Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, you can use a source code control system to check-in and check out source files created by Iron Speed Designer.

Which files are source code files?

Iron Speed Designer considers several types of files to be source code files:

We recommend you place your entire project (all files) under source code control.

Working with Source Code Control Systems

The best way to work with Visual SourceSafe or similar source code control tools is as follows:

  1. Check-in the XML component definition files for your pages.  Since the C# and Visual Basic .NET code files and the ASPX / ASCX page files are created by Iron Speed Designer, you do not need to check them into your source control system unless you modified any of the C# or Visual Basic .NET code files.  If you did modify them, only check-in the ones you have modified.

  2. Check-in the XML files in the Data Access Layer folder.  These files contain the database schema information used by Iron Speed Designer to create your application’s data access layer.  You do not need to check in any of the associated C# or Visual Basic .NET code files.

  3. Check-in your application’s project-related files, if any, such as AppInfo.xml, MyApp.config, and MyApp.sln.

  4. If you modify your database schema, we suggest you check out the entire project before scanning and accepting the changes in Iron Speed Designer.  This is because a change in one field of one table may have caused changes on many pages.  At a minimum, check-out the Data Access Layer XML files when scanning your database for changes and accepting the changes.  If database table fields are deleted or modified significantly, accepting changes may impact some pages, so you may want to check-out all and XML component definition files for the pages as well.

  5. If you modified the database properties of a table, view or query, check out the XML component definition file for that table, view or query.

  6. Check-out the XML component definition files when you are working on them individually.

  7. If you are modifying a page, check out all of the files related to the page including the .ASPX, .VB / .CS, .XML and .Controls.vb / .cs files.  Note that the .Controls.vb / .cs files may be in the App_Code folder when using .NET Framework 2.0 / 3.0.

If you follow these simple guidelines, then you will not have any problems using a source code control system such as Visual Source Safe, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, and Rational ClearCase.

See Also

Building Your Application

Running Your Application

Always Pre-compile Before Running

Source Code Control

Setting the Application Assembly Information