如何使用 TFS 使用 master 的更改更新当前分支？

Question

I have a project code that uses Team Foundation Server (TFS) for revision control. I created a new branch named br-feature from main using Visual Studio 2019. Since then, my main branch changed. I want to pull all the new changes from the main branch and onto the current br-feature branch to ensure everything works before I merge changes from br-feature into main .

I do not see an option using Visual Studio to fast-forward current branch. How can I pull all the changes from my main branch into br-feature using TFS?

Answer 1

From the comments the repo is TFVC. TFS can host TFVC and git repos.

To work with TFVC:

• Ensure that you have a configured and working Team Project connection. (From the 'Team' menu choose 'Manage Connections...'.)
• Ensure that in the dialog opened by the 'Tools --> Options...' menu that in the 'Source Control' section in 'Plug-in Selection' that "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server" is an option. (The plug-in selection should update based on the selected repo.)
• If you haven't already, you will need to connect to the TFVC repo and establish a local workspace. Both branches will need to be mapped to your workspace.
• In the 'Team Explorer' window, click the 'Home' button. In the 'Home' pane, click the 'Source Control Explorer' link to open the 'Source Control Explorer' window.
• In the 'Source Control Explorer' window, when you right-click on a branch in the context menu there should be a 'Branching and Merging --> Merge...' option.

In TFVC branches are hierarchal. The question description suggests that br-feature is a child branch of main . It should be straight-forward to merge from main (the parent branch) to br-feature (a child branch).

TFVC is file-based, not snapshot-based like git. Each file has its own chain of deltas. TFVC changesets are equivalent to git commits but are a set of deltas to files.

Because TFVC is file-based, file adds and file deletes are somewhat special. To keep the order of changesets correct, always merge parent to child before child to parent. ie ensure that changes in main are merged to br-feature and br-feature is up to date with main before merging br-feature to main . The 'order' is important with how file adds and deletes are interpreted.

With the branch hierarchy the auto-merge logic is able to perform a three-way compare: the current 'target' file, the incoming changed 'source' file, and the common ancestor for both. But the branch hierarchy can be very limiting.

When you choose 'Merge...` from the context menu, the 'Merge' dialog will open. The branch you clicked on will be selected as the source branch and you will be able to select the target branch. (The merge is from 'source' to 'target'.)

The "All changes up to a specific version" option is what you want to use. It will default to T which is the most recent revision (somewhat like HEAD with git).

(In the 'Merge' dialog you will see language about a 'merge relationship' - that means there is a parent/child relationship between the branches. You will also see mention of a 'baseless merge' - that means there is no parent/child relationship. The auto-merge logic doesn't support baseless merges. If you do a baseless merge all changes need to be manually merged.)