Branches Command

Displays the history of a branch for a specified file or folder.

Required Permissions

To use the branches command you must have the Read permission set to Allow for the item and any branches to view their history. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

tf branches [/server:servername] itemspec [/version:versionspec]

Parameters

Argument

Description

servername

The user-provided value for the /server option. Example: teamfoundation2.

Itemspec

Identifies the file or folder that contains the branch you want to examine. For more information about how Team Foundation parses itemspecs to determine which items are within scope, see Command-Line Options.

Versionspec

Provides a value for the /version option. For more information about how Team Foundation parses a version specification to determine which items are within its scope, see Command-Line Syntax (Team System).

Option

Description

/server

Identifies the Team Foundation Server. This option is required if the command is invoked from a directory that is not mapped to a workspace.

/version

Specifies the version for the path. This option is rarely used.

Remarks

The branches command tells you when an item has been the source or destination of a branch operation. The output displays the parent branch for each version.

For more information on how to find the tf command-line utility, see Tf Command-Line Utility Commands.

Examples

The following example displays branch history for the version-controlled file C:\314.cs.

c:\projects>tf branches 314.cs

The following example displays branch history for the header.h item in the Team Foundation version control server.

c:\projects>tf branches $/applications/header.h

The following example displays the branch history of the folder $/rel30/math.

c:\projects>tf branches $/rel30/math/

The following example displays the branch history for WindowsApplication13-branch. The results indicate the history for the specified branch by using angle brackets.

D:\projects\ws1>tf branches WindowsApplication13-branch
$/jun16-1/WindowsApplication13
>>      $/jun16-1/WindowsApplication13-branch   Branched from version 3 <<
                $/jun16-1/WindowsApplication13-branch-prime     Branched from version 5
        $/jun16-1/WindowsApplication13-branch2  Branched from version 3

See Also

Concepts

Informational Commands

Understanding Branching

Reference

Branch Command

Merges Command

Other Resources

Tf Command-Line Utility Commands