Checking in Shelvesets

Question

I'm a developer and I've made some changes to a solution, which I have saved off to a shelveset. Another developer unshelves my changes and builds the solution on a server. Is there a way for the second developer to check in my shelveset? I know he/she can check in the individual files comprising the shelveset. However, I was thinking of a "checkin" command that took the name of a shelveset as a parameter, or if there was another way to check in those changes as a unit, with the shelveset name.

Solution 1

The other developer can open a Visual Studio Command Prompt and use the following command:

tf checkin /shelveset:shelvesetname;shelvesetowner

See Checkin Command on MSDN for more details.

Solution 2

I don't think check-in via TFS Command Line directly is a better way, it maybe conflict with the latest code on TFS.

I think the better way to check in shelveset if there are some another changes in you code, but you don't check in it, is create a new WorkSpace in your local computer

Then map the latest code to the new workspace, then unshelve(download) the shelveset, resolve the conflict if necessary, then check in the code

Solution 3

For those having issues with the error:"Items cannot be specified with the /shelveset option.", try putting the user name in parenthesis as follows:

tf checkin /shelveset:shelvesetname;"shelvesetowner"

Comments

[cjs]

Thanks for the reply. However, it is possible that multiple developers will have shelved changes that need to be unshelved, built and checked in from the server. I figured that if one could check in by shelveset name, then the shelvesets on the server can be built, tested and checked in one at a time. Is this not possible?

[Robaticus]

It sounds like what you're talking about is similar in fashion to the Gated Checkin approach that you have in TFS 2010. In that setup, TFS will take a check-in, put it in a shelfset, then build based on that shelfset.

[cjs]

I think I misspoke. When I mentioned building the shelveset on a server, I meant that it will be built in Visual Studio, which is installed on a server. That is, by server I did not mean "build agent". I'm looking at doing this in code but no luck yet.

[Robaticus]

So, basically you have a "buildmaster" that will get 1..n shelvesets into a workspace, perform a build, then selectively check in 1..n shelvesets? If you're looking at checking in all the shelvesets, he could do it from a clean workspace, then just check in all pending changes. If you're looking at selectively checking in the changesets, it will get a bit more difficult and you might have to go to either PowerShell or code.

[ekkis]

I get the error: "Items cannot be specified with the /shelveset option." - what does that mean?

[machinarium]

Also come across this error, do you have any resolutions later?

[Elaskanator]

This always deletes the shelveset. I don't see any options to the command to preserve it; must it always get deleted?!