Merging a Development Path Procedure

The procedure for merging a development path is divided into two tasks: the pre-merge task and the merge task.

The following are the steps to perform to set up the development path merge operation before the merge actually takes place.

1. In the Sandboxes view, locate and select the project revision you want to merge a development path into, and then select the Merge Child Development Path action (command). The Merge Child Development Path dialog box displays.

Whenever a sandbox is not in context, selecting Merge Development Path displays a Sandbox selection dialog box.

◦ Select the source development path you intend to merge into the parent development path. Only children of the previously selected project display in the list.

◦ Specify an Integrity Lifecycle Manager item to store merge information (and the propagation change package created by the merge operation). This list only displays if your implementation of Integrity Lifecycle Manager has the workflows and documents integration is enabled. Note that the list item <none> will not display if items are mandatory.

When you are finished, click OK.

The command creates a propagation change package that contains the changes necessary to perform the development path merge. The command does so by determining the list of change packages to propagate. The command finds all of the closed change packages that have at least one entry on that development path. If a change package has entries that are not on the project tree, then those entries are ignored.

If a change package has entries that are not on the development path but are still on the same project, then they are used (picked up) by the command. You should not use change packages with members across development paths.

If you previously performed a development path merge from one branch to another, when repeating the operation, the command filters out the list of change packages leaving only those change packages that were closed after the last merge completed.

When the command completes, the propagation change package is automatically created on the source branch.

If there is a merge conflict, a dialog box displays. You have the choice to merge automatically, or manually merge. Clicking OK displays the propagation change package contents.

3. View the propagation change package and review the changes to ensure they are as desired.

At this point, no actual merging or changes have been performed to the projects.

You can also view the item for the change package, that contains the description of the propagation change package and operation’s report summary.

To merge the development path, submit the propagation change package created in the pre-merge task. You may receive prompts for operations contained in the change package that require input.

Once the merge is completed, Integrity Lifecycle Manager checkpoints the destination (parent) project. You can verify the results of the merge by viewing the project history (View Project History action). The merge operation is represented by a merge line.