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Unshelving a Shelveset to a Different Branch in TFS

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[Note: In this post, I am assuming that you are familiar with the TFS Branching Guidance. If you haven't read the guide, I strongly recommend that you do so! I will be referring to the branch names suggested for the basic branch plan.]

Scenario: After an application is released to the production environment, a defect has been raised by the users. The production support team decides to fix this defect before the next version is released so they start by modifying the appropriate files in the REL branch to fix the defect. When the developer working on the defect finishes his job, he shelves those changes and asks the support team lead to review those changes before they are checked in. The support team lead analyses the changes and because of the risks involved, she talks to the users and they agree to wait until the release of the next version to get the fix.

Challenge: When you create a shelveset, the server path of each shelved file is stored with the shelveset so when you try to unshelve that shelveset, the files in the same branch are modified. You cannot unshelve the shelveset to a different branch such as DEV so you will need to do this manually by unshelving to the original branch and then manually copying the modified files across, which is time consuming and error prone.

Solution: TFS 2008 Power Tools includes a command line tool (TFPT.exe), which allows you to perform advanced operations in TFS. One of these operations is the unshelve command, which allows you to change the server path of the files in a shelveset during the unshelve operation. This means you can use this command to unshelve any shelveset to a different branch. In our scenario, the shelveset was originally created in the REL branch so the development team can use the TFPT tool to unshelve the shelveset to the DEV branch.

So let's assume that the support team have changed the source files in the REL branch and we want to unshelve this shelveset to the DEV branch. In order to do this, we need to:

- Make sure the TFPT command line tool is installed!
- Go to the command prompt and change the folder to a location that is mapped in the desired workspace.
- Run the following command:
    TFPT.exe unshelve ReleaseHotFix1 /migrate /source: $/MyProject/REL /target: $/MyProject/DEV
          Where ReleaseHotFix1 is the original shelveset name and $/MyProject/REL and $/MyProject/DEV are the server paths to the REL and DEV branches respectively.

When you run the unshelve command with the migrate option, the tool will prompt you to choose which version of the file (in origin or target) you want to keep. It will also allow you to perform a file merge if needed, which will be done in the merge tool.

The following diagram shows the sequence of events that need to happen across multiple branches in our scenario:

Events:

  • S1: Production support team shelve their changes in the REL branch.

  • U1: Development team unshelve the shelveset to the DEV branch by running the TFPT tool and using the shelveset migrate option.

  • C1: After resolving any potential conflicts in the DEV branch, the modified files are checked in.

  • RI1: At some point, the checked-in changeset will be reverse integrated (merged) back into the MAIN branch.

Originally posted by Mehran Nikoo on 07 July 2009 here.