Advanced Comparison

Advanced Comparison

Source Reliance gives you all the tools you need to know what changes have been made to your project at any level in the enterprise. Comparisons can be performed on files, selected portions of files, projects, and entire branches, and they can be performed for a variety of different purposes.

Database Version Comparison

Comparisons of files, projects, and branches can be made for any two versions in the database. You can select any two labels and see the changes that have occurred between those two points in time for the selected item. You can also perform a comparison between a label and the latest version of the file, project, or branch.

Source File Block Comparison

Block Comparison is a very powerful feature that is available in the File Comparison View. When a file comparison is performed between two versions of a file, this feature allows you to select an arbitrary block of lines in the starting version of the file, and trace through all intervening versions of the file showing the changes that were made to the selected block of lines. Only the intervening versions that involved the selected lines of code are shown. The Block Comparison gives you an immediate understanding of what changes were made to a given block of code, when they were made, and by whom. This feature is very useful for such things as finding out what version of a source file a particular function was modified, and for doing forensic analysis to determine how and when a bug regressed. The Block Comparison feature gives you insight into the changes made to your code that is not available in any other SCM system.

Working Folder Comparison

Comparisons between the working folder and the latest version in the database can be made for files, projects, and branches. This allows you to immediately see what you have changed locally in your working folder for the selected item. This is useful for verifying your changes before checking them in.

Compare a Branch To Its Parent

A branch can be compared to its parent branch with a 3-way comparison which shows all the changes that have been made to the branch and its parent since the branch was created, or since the last merge between the two branches was performed. This allows you to quickly see all the changes that have been made in the entire branch and its parent, and provides a convenient way to scope a merge between the two branches prior to starting the merge.

Change Set Comparisons

Change Sets are used to record and organize related change activity across the entire enterprise. That change activity can be viewed at any level. Showing the changes for the Change Set itself gives you all the changes for that Change Set across the entire enterprise. The change activity within the Change Set are organized by database and activity type. You can show the changes at these levels as well. This allows you to easily view the content of a related group of changes from the enterprise level all the way down to a single line of code in a single file. Change Set comparisons are what make Change Sets so powerful.

Merge Comparisons

When a merge is being performed, all the hierarchical (the file and folder structure) and file changes involved in the merge are shown in the merge view. All non-conflicting changes are automatically merged, and you can view the comparison of the changes involved in a merged project or file in the merge view. For merged files, viewing the merged content shows you the base version, the source and target versions involved in the merge, and the final merged version. This comparison allows you to immediately see all the changes that were contributed from the two branches, and how they ended up in the final merged version.

Once a merge has been completed, you can view the changes involved in the merge from the Branch History View. This shows you the comparison of the selected branch before and after the merge, giving you an immediate understanding of all the final changes that were committed to the database for that merge.