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What is the difference between “Share” and “Share and Branch”?

Posted by archworx on October 1, 2006

What is the difference between “Share and Branch” and “Share” in source safe”?
I spent ages searching the net for meaning information on this.

The easiest explanation I found is as follows:

Share:
Is when 2 projetcs share a common library, so they only refererence that library, therefore, when changes happen to that library both projects see them.

Share and Branch:
This just takes a copy of the shared project and inserts it into your own project, so it will get a totally independent copy of the library and the changes you make won’t make the least bit of difference.
The doc below contains a lot of useful sourcesafe info:
http://portal.dfpug.de/dfpug/Dokumente/Partner/Hentzenwerke/Essential%20SourceSafe%20Chapter%2002.pdf

One Response to “What is the difference between “Share” and “Share and Branch”?”

  1. mkaram said

    One way to think about this is in terms of the resource’s (file or directory/project) past & present.

    When you “share”, it means you wish for the resource’s past & present to be the same.

    When you “branch”, it means you want the resources to have a shared past, but a different future.

    It is also worth mentioning that you can actually branch/share from a previous (& unlabeled) state in your project, not just the most recent snapshot.

    Way to go MSamy – please keep this stuff coming.

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