>Hi
>
>Helping a site that is interested in introducing source control for a set of VFP7 and VFP9 applications.
>
>I've used a variety of source control on other non Fox developments but wondered if anyone has strong recommendations for or warning on source control systems that could be applied.
>
>Thanks
>
>Nick Mason

I have used TFS for many years, and just recently I implemented source control using TortoiseSVN. I also tried out Bitbucket which is great especially for very small teams because you just create an account and save the work in the cloud, so you can implement it very quickly without any hassle, all you need is an email account.

My personal preference when using Source Control with VFP is to avoid conflicts and don't attempt to merge changes. That means you need to lock the files, so only one developer can edit a file at the same time and needs to check in the changes before another developer checks it out. In TFS it is the action Checkout > "Prevent other users from checking this file out". In Tortoise I added the property svn:needs-lock and the locking can be done in Tortoise right click menu or also with command line tools that you can implement in VFP. That may not work well with older projects when you have large procedure files with hundreds of procedures in one prg, or class libraries with hundreds of classes, but for quite some time now I break down the code into smaller pieces that work more independently from another and then the system is working really great. A nice benefit from locking is also that I can see who is currently (or supposedly) working on which files or parts in the program, and I can also see how long they have it locked already.

That means in VFP the source code is readyonly and in order to make changes you have to checkout and lock the file.

When using TFS it is important to set the option "Get latest version of item upon checkout." Strangely enough this option is unchecked by default, and that would mean you could accidentally checkout and lock an old version of a file when another developer has done changes and you did not get latest. Then you get the surprise when checking the work back in that there is a conflict.

SPX, FXP, and MNX need to be excluded and put on the ignore list.