Check In and Production Copy

[MColeman]

I'm learning Visual Source Safe, and I'm a little confused about it works.

I've read that: When you check out a file, a copy is created in your working directory where the development work is done. When you check in a file, VSS maintains your source code directory.

This source code directory referred to above is stored in the index and data files of the VSS database.

So when I check a file in, VSS doesn't move a copy of the latest version to the production directory where the end user would be accessing it.

Do I understand this correctly?

Even though we use source safe for source code control, we still have to manually move copies into the production directory.

Thanks!

 

[uolj]

If you use SourceSafe the way I'm familiar with using SourceSafe, you don't have to explicitly copy your changes to the production environment, but you do have to "get" them.

SourceSafe keeps internal copies of all files it manages. When you get a project or file, you get a local copy. When you check it out, it becomes writable and you can modify it. When you check it in, a copy of your changes is made in the data files of the VSS database.

In your production environment, you get the project you are working on so that there is a "local" copy on your production machine. Then, whenever changes are checked in, you must do a Get Latest Version to retrieve all changes since the last Get Latest. We usually automated this to run overnight every night to get all changes checked in by users that day. The next morning the production environment is up-to-date. If we need to test something mid-day, we manually do a get latest on the production machine.

I hope that helps answer your question.

 

[MColeman]

Thanks, that really cleared this up for me!