CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studio-2013tfs
user3430328
user3430328

Reputation:

Best way to determine which party made code changes?

I have a scenario I am hoping someone will be able to help me think through and determine the best way to handle. The tools I am using are Visual Studio 2013 and TFS.

We had a developer leave our company abruptly, and he has a lot of code changes for a client project which were not yet checked in. We have the code base with his changes locally. We also have the client's TFS server with the latest code. I do not have documentation of his changes, so my goal is to find all the code changes he has made. Keep in mind I also do not have access to his machine, I just have access to the local code base which he was working on, which includes his changes.

I began by comparing his code with the client's code on TFS, and looking for changes. However the client has also made some changes to their code in the 2 months since this developer began working on this project. So within those two months he made some changes locally and the client also made some changes which were checked in on TFS.

When I compare his code to the latest copy of code on the server, I can see the differences, but I can't seem to tell who made the changes. If a method was modified, I see that different versions exist on TFS and in this local code, but I cannot tell who made the change. Did the client make the change to the code, and the newer version on TFS makes my version look out of date? Or did this developer make the change to the code, making the server code look out of date? As the changes done by our developer were not checked in, I do not have a history showing me who made the changes to the code. What would be the best way to determine the changes our local developer made?

So, to sum it up: I have compared his local code to server code, and have seen the differences, but the client has also made changes to code since he acquired it. So the differences between his code and server code could either be due to his changes or client changes, but I don't know which.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 124

Answers (1)

jessehouwing
jessehouwing

Reputation: 114641

I see a few ways which could make your life easier, but it requires you to know which version your developer initially downloaded. With that version (Changeset, Label, Date) you can make a comparison against the local workspace and find all the changes to that version on the server.

Workspace version

You can initiate the diff from the commandline (as well as from Visual Studio, but command lines are much easier to post on Stack Overflow):

tf folderdiff c:\sources "$/TFSProject/Path/To/Sources;C12345" /recursive
     /collection:http://your.client.tfsserver.com:8080/tfs/ProjectCollection 
     /view:different,sourceonly

In the place of C12345 you can either enter the Changeset number that was used to create the workspace on your developer's machine or the label (use Llabelname instead of Cnumber) or the (approximate) date (use D2014-12-20).

This will output a list of files that have changed locally against the version that was used to create the workspace. Now you can list each file individually using:

tf diff c:\sources\changedfile.cs /version:C12345

(or use the same version spec as above if you used Labels or a Date).

There is another option, if the workspace is still registered on the TFS server, and that is to compare against the workspace version:

tf folderdiff c:\sources "$/TFSProject/Path/To/Sources;Wworkspacename;owner" /recursive 
     /collection:http://your.client.tfsserver.com:8080/tfs/ProjectCollection 
     /view:different,sourceonly`

Followed by:

tf diff c:\sources\changedfile.cs /version:Wworkspacename;owner

You do not need to own the workspace in order to do this, but the server must still have a record for that workspace on the server. You can try finding the workspace using the command:

C:\Sources\>tf workspaces /owner:avanade-corp\jesse.houwing /computer:jessehouwing 
    /collection:http://your.client.tfsserver.com:8080/tfs/ProjectCollection

Collection: http://your.client.tfsserver.com:8080/tfs/ProjectCollection
Workspace               Owner         Computer     Comment
----------------------- ------------- ------------ ----------------------------
JESSEHOUWING            Jesse Houwing JESSEHOUWING

The example above would lead to:

tf folderdiff c:\sources "$/TFSProject/Path/To/Sources;WJESSEHOUWING;Jesse Houwing" /recursive 
     /collection:http://your.client.tfsserver.com:8080/tfs/ProjectCollection 
     /view:different,sourceonly

Create a shelfset

If you do have the option to get access to the system (even if logged on as a different user) you can take ownership of the workspace and create a Shelveset of the changes. You can then unshelve these changes on a more recent workspace and Visual Studio will prompt you to resolve merge conflicts. TFS will know which changes were made by the other party and will try to auto-merge the changes as best it can.

Upvotes: 1

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