What does version control mean?

Version control refers to the management of changes in various program codes, configuration files, documentation and other files during the software development process. It is one of the core ideas of software configuration management.

Version control refers to the management of changes in various program codes, configuration files, documentation and other files during the software development process. It is a software configuration management one of the core ideas.

Brief description:

The main function of version control is to track changes to files. It faithfully records information such as when and who changed what content of the file. Every time a file is changed, the file's version number will be incremented. In addition to recording version changes, another important function of version control is parallel development. Software development is often a collaborative effort between multiple people. Version control can effectively solve the problem of version synchronization and development communication between different developers, and improve the efficiency of collaborative development. The most common problem of bug fixes in different versions of software in parallel development can also be effectively solved through branching and merging in version control.

Specifically, in every development task, it is necessary to first set the development baseline and determine the initial development version of each configuration item. During the development process, developers develop based on the version of the development baseline. The desired target version. When a demand change occurs, the scope of influence of the change is determined by evaluating the change, and the version of the affected configuration item is modified. According to the nature of the change, the version tree of the configuration item is continued to be extended or a new branch is generated to form a new The target version, and configuration items that are not affected by the change should not be changed. At the same time, the impact of changes on the version should be recorded and tracked. You can also roll back to a previous version if necessary. For example, when development requirements or requirement changes are cancelled, you need to have the ability to roll back the version to the development baseline version. In the process of unpacking and repackaging quarterly upgrade packages that have occurred in the past, it is actually to roll back the versions of some configuration items to the development baseline, and recombine and merge different branches corresponding to different needs to form a new upgrade package version.

Version control is the core function of software configuration management. All elements placed in the configuration library should be automatically identified with versions, and the uniqueness of version naming should be ensured. During the generation process, the version automatically branches and evolves according to the set usage model. In addition to the version information automatically recorded by the system, in order to cooperate with various stages of the software development process. It is also necessary to define and collect some metadata to record version auxiliary information and standardize the development process, and to prepare for future measurement of the software process. Of course, if the selected tools support it, these auxiliary data will be able to directly calculate process data, thereby facilitating software process improvement activities. For each baseline control item in the configuration library, the corresponding access permissions should be set based on the location and status of its baseline. Generally speaking, all versions before the baseline version should be locked. If changes need to be made to them, the change control process should be followed.

Common tools:

1. Open source version control tools

There are many open source version control tools, such as Concurrent Versions System (CVS), Subversion (SVN), Vesta, Revision Control System (RCS), Source Code Control System (SCCS) )wait. Two of the more commonly used tools are CVS and SVN. CVS is a client-server architecture version control software based on RCS developed by Dick Grune from 1984 to 1985. It has long been the main choice of free version control software. An important development goal of SVN is to correct the well-known shortcomings in CVS and provide a new version control software. For small and medium-sized teams, SVN is a better open source version control tool. The commonly used client tool for SVN is TortoiseSVN.

2. Mature commercial tools

Commercial tools provide more than open source version control tools, especially functions related to software configuration management. IBM's Rational ClearCase is a heavyweight software configuration management software that provides version control, workspace management, parallel development support and version auditing for large and medium-sized software development companies. It can provide comprehensive services for large projects with thousands of developers. Configuration management support.

The above is the detailed content of What does version control mean?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!