Versions and History

As we've seen in Chapter 1, a fundamental characteristic of SCM tools is file versioning and history management. During the development process, files in the database change and evolve as the project evolves. Files are modified, renamed, and moved from one folder to another, new files are added, and others are deleted. All these operations are part of the day-to-day work. The SourceSafe database keeps a track of these operations and provides the option to see the state at any time in the past since the solution was first added to Source Control.

Each time a file is added or changed and checked in to the database, a revision is created. Thus, a file evolves as a succession of revisions, referred to by successive numbers such as 1, 2, 3, and so on.

File Versions and History

Let's see, for example, the history of the BusinessLogic project file in the OrbitalHotel solution. To view the history of a solution resource we have to right-click on it and then use the View History...