View Compare/Merge Table of Action Decisions

When comparing views in a VCM session, VCM compares the state of each pair of items in the source and target views against a table of difference types to determine if the items match the criteria in any of the rows. From that, it decides what, if any, are the default and possible actions for resolving each item difference for a given merge type. The resulting list of default and possible actions is what is presented during the VCM session.

The following table shows the rules VCM uses to decide which actions to take under a given set of conditions for each merge type: Promote, Rebase, and Replicate. The table shows all the possible actions that can be taken in a VCM Session. In the table, the default action is always listed as the first action. Ignoring the item differences is always one of the options.

This table explains how VCM will treat each pair of matching items, one in the source and one in the target. Because the table indicates what actions VCM allows and what action VCM will select by default, it can be considered a set of use cases. The actions allowed by VCM depend on the type of operation (Rebase, Promote, or Replicate), and the following characteristics of the items:

• Whether an item in the source matches an item in the target (that is, whether the item exists in only one or both views).
• Whether the matching items are on the same branch or different branches (based on their dot notations).
• Whether the corresponding items are in the same location in the two views (that is, in the same StarTeam folder path. A difference in location indicates that one or both of the matching items has been moved).
• Whether additional revisions of the matching items have occurred since the last merge.
• Whether the target item is a floating child of the source item.