About source control systems

This section provides an overview of source control systems and describes the PowerBuilder interface (API) to such systems.

What source control systems do

Source control systems (version control systems) track and store the evolutionary history of software components. They are particularly useful if you are working with other developers on a large application, in that they can prevent multiple developers from modifying the same component at the same time. You can make sure you are working with the latest version of a component or object by synchronizing the copy of the object you are working on with the last version of the object checked into the source control system.

Why use a source control system

Most source control systems provide disaster recovery protection and functions to help manage complex development processes. With a source control system, you can track the development history of objects in your PowerBuilder workspace, maintain archives, and restore previous revisions of objects if necessary.

Source control interfaces

You work with a source control system through a source control interface. PowerBuilder supports source control interfaces based on the Microsoft Common Source Code Control Interface Specification, Version 0.99.0823. You can use the PowerBuilder SCC API with any source control system that implements features defined in the Microsoft specification.

PowerBuilder institutes source control at the object level. This gives you a finer grain of control than if you copied your PBLs directly to source control outside of the PowerBuilder SCC API.

NoteNo other interfaces PowerBuilder does not support working with source control systems through proprietary interfaces provided by source control vendors. To work with source control systems from your PowerBuilder workspace, you must use the PowerBuilder SCC API. PowerBuilder also uses this API to connect to the PowerBuilder Native check in/check out utility that installs with the product.