User Help > Managing Source Files as Members > Branching Members
 
Branching Members
As your projects evolve, you may need to branch members to facilitate development in multiple directions. Branching diverges from the mainline within an individual member’s history and creates a new revision path. These revisions can then be merged with the member revision on the mainline. Merging combines changes into a new revision, usually the head revision.
A branch can start from the mainline or another branch. Revision numbers contain the complete number of the revision that started the branch, for example, 1.2 is branched into 1.2.1.1.
You can branch members while performing a check in operation in the GUI or Web interface by selecting the Force Creation of New Branch option.
In addition, members can be branched when:
you check in a revision using an already existing revision number
you check in a revision when working in a variant Sandbox
When performing a branch on check in, the member is checked in but is not updated to the member revision. The working revision number increments accordingly, and the original member revision in the project remains unchanged.