Shelving code workflow - can I safely undue my changes after shelving them?

Question

Once I create a shelve from files in my pending changes, can I then safely undue my changes and continue working and then unshelve at a later date?

What is the correct workflow when shelving?

Answer 1

Yes, in TFS you can shelve a set of changes and then undo them locally. You can then unshelve your changes later on and those shelved changes will be applied to your local files.

HOWEVER , if you shelve-->undo local changes-->change the same files you shelved-->then try to unshelve (before checking in your latest changes)...TFS won't unshelve due to conflicts because TFS unshelve command doesn't handle conflicts/merging. The good news is you can use TFS Power Tools to unshelve and merge conflicting changes in one step.

This link has a pretty good explanation of unshelving conflicts and how TFS Power Tools can be used for unshelving when there are conflicts: http://www.codewrecks.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/02/tfs-pills-merging-conflicts-during-unshelve/