Microsoft Visual SourceSafe Tasks User Manual

Craig Cottingham
Andrew Everitt
Balazs Fejes 2
Glenn_Twiggs@bmc.com
Martin Poeschl (mpoeschl@marmot.at)
Phillip Wells
Jon Skeet (jon.skeet@peramon.com)
Nigel Magnay (nigel.magnay@parsec.co.uk)
Gary S. Weaver
Jesse Stockall

Introduction
The Tasks

Introduction

These tasks provide an interface to the Microsoft Visual SourceSafe SCM. The org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.vss package consists of a simple framework to support VSS functionality as well as some Apache Ant tasks encapsulating frequently used VSS commands. Although it is possible to use these commands on the desktop, they were primarily intended to be used by automated build systems.

If you get a CreateProcess error=2 when running these, it means that ss.exe was not found. Check to see if you can run it from the command line—you may need to alter your path, or set the ssdir property.

The Tasks

Task	Description
vssget	Retrieves a copy of the specified VSS file(s).
vsslabel	Assigns a label to the specified version or current version of a file or project.
vsshistory	Shows the history of a file or project in VSS.
vsscheckin	Updates VSS with changes made to a checked out file, and unlocks the VSS master copy.
vsscheckout	Copies a file from the current project to the current folder, for the purpose of editing.
vssadd	Adds a new file into the VSS Archive
vsscp	Change the current project being used in VSS
vsscreate	Creates a project in VSS.

Task Descriptions

VssGet

Description

Task to perform GET commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

If you specify two or more attributes from version, date and label only one will be used in the order version, date, label.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project/file(s) you wish to perform the action on.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
localpath	Override the working directory and get to the specified path	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
writable	true\|false	No; default false
recursive	true\|false. Note however that in the SourceSafe UI there is a setting accessed via Tools/Options/GeneralTab called Act on projects recursively. If this setting is checked, then the `recursive` attribute is effectively ignored, and get will always be done recursively	No; default false
version	a version number to get	No; only one of these may be used
date	a date stamp to get at
label	a label to get for
quiet	suppress output	No; defaults to off
autoresponse	What to respond with (sets the `-I` option). By default, `-I-` is used; values of Y or N will be appended to this.	No
writablefiles	Behavior when local files are writable. Valid options are: replace, skip and fail; skip implies `failonerror`=false	No; defaults to fail
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100	No; defaults to true
filetimestamp	Set the behavior for timestamps of local files. Valid options are current, modified, or updated.	No; defaults to current

Note that only one of version, date or label should be specified

Examples

Perform a get on the VSS Project $/source/myproject using the username me and the password mypassword. That will recursively get the files which are labeled Release1 and write them to the local directory C:\mysrc\myproject. The local files will be writable.

<vssget localPath="C:\mysrc\myproject"
        recursive="true"
        label="Release1"
        login="me,mypassword"
        vsspath="$/source/aProject"
        writable="true"/>

VssLabel

Description

Task to perform LABEL commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

Assigns a label to the specified version or current version of a file or project.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project/file(s) you wish to perform the action on.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
label	A label to apply to the hierarchy	Yes
version	An existing file or project version to label. By default the current version is labeled.	No
comment	The comment to use for this label. Empty or - for no comment.	No
autoresponse	What to respond with (sets the `-I` option). By default, `-I-` is used; values of Y or N will be appended to this.	No
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100.	No; defaults to true

Examples

Label the current version of the VSS project $/source/aProject with the label Release1 using the username me and the password mypassword.

<vsslabel vsspath="$/source/aProject"
          login="me,mypassword"
          label="Release1"/>

Label version 4 of the VSS file $/source/aProject/myfile.txt with the label 1.03.004. If this version already has a label, the operation (and the build) will fail.

<vsslabel vsspath="$/source/aProject/myfile.txt"
          version="4"
          label="1.03.004"/>

VssHistory

Description

Task to perform HISTORY commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project/file(s) you wish to perform the action on.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
fromDate	Start date for comparison	See below
toDate	End date for comparison	See below
dateFormat	Format of dates in `fromDate` and `toDate`. Used when calculating dates with the `numdays` attribute. This string uses the formatting rules of SimpleDateFormat.	No; defaults to `DateFormat.SHORT`
fromLabel	Start label for comparison	No
toLabel	Start label for comparison	No
numdays	The number of days for comparison.	See below
output	File to write the diff.	No
recursive	true\|false	No
style	brief, codediff, default or nofile.	No; defaults to default
user	Name the user whose changes we would like to see	No
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100	No; defaults to true

Specifying the time-frame

There are different ways to specify what time-frame you wish to evaluate:

Changes between two dates: Specify both fromDate and toDate
Changes before a date: Specify toDate
Changes after a date: Specify fromDate
Changes X Days before a date: Specify toDate and (negative!) numDays
Changes X Days after a date: Specify fromDate and numDays

Examples

Show all changes between Release1 and Release2.

<vsshistory vsspath="$/myProject" recursive="true"
            fromLabel="Release1"
            toLabel="Release2"/>

Show all changes between January 1st 2001 and March 31st 2001 (in Germany, date must be specified according to your locale).

<vsshistory vsspath="$/myProject" recursive="true"
            fromDate="01.01.2001"
            toDate="31.03.2001"/>

Shows all changes in the last fortnight.

<tstamp>
  <format property="to.tstamp" pattern="M-d-yy;h:mma"/>
</tstamp>

<vsshistory vsspath="$/myProject" recursive="true"
            numDays="-14"
            dateFormat="M-d-yy;h:mma"
            toDate="${to.tstamp}"/>

VssCheckin

Description

Task to perform CHECKIN commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project/file(s) you wish to perform the action on.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
localpath	Override the working directory and get to the specified path	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
writable	true\|false	No
recursive	true\|false	No
comment	Comment to use for the files that where checked in.	No
autoresponse	Y, N or empty. Specify how to reply to questions from VSS.	No
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100.	No; defaults to true

Examples

Check in the file(s) named test* in the project $/test using the local directory D:\build.

<vsscheckin vsspath="$/test/test*"
            localpath="D:\build\"
            comment="Modified by automatic build"/>

VssCheckout

Description

Task to perform CHECKOUT commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

If you specify two or more attributes from version, date and label only one will be used in the order version, date, label.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project/file(s) you wish to perform the action on.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
localpath	Override the working directory and get to the specified path	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
writable	true\|false	No
recursive	true\|false	No
version	a version number to get	No; only one of these may be used
date	a date stamp to get at
label	a label to get for
writablefiles	Behavior when local files are writable. Valid options are: replace, skip and fail; skip implies `failonerror`=false	No; defaults to fail
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100.	No; defaults to true
filetimestamp	Set the behavior for timestamps of local files. Valid options are current, modified, or updated.	No; defaults to current
getlocalcopy	Set the behavior to retrieve local copies of the files.	No; defaults to true

Examples

Check out the project $/test recursively to the directory D:\build.

<vsscheckout vsspath="$/test"
             localpath="D:\build"
             recursive="true"
             login="me,mypass"/>

VssAdd

Description

Task to perform ADD commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
localpath	Specify the local file(s) to add to VSS	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
writable	true\|false	No
recursive	true\|false	No
comment	Comment to use for the files that where checked in.	No
autoresponse	Y, N or empty. Specify how to reply to questions from VSS.	No
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100.	No; defaults to true

Examples

Add the file named build.00012.zip into the project current working directory (see vsscp).

<vssadd localpath="D:\build\build.00012.zip"
        comment="Added by automatic build"/>

VssCp

Description

Task to perform CP (Change Project) commands to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.

This task is typically used before a VssAdd in order to set the target project

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
vsspath	SourceSafe path which specifies the project you wish to make the current project.	Yes
login	username[,password]—The username and password needed to get access to VSS. Note that you may need to specify both (if you have a password)—Ant/VSS will hang if you leave the password out and VSS does not accept login without a password.	No
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
serverPath	directory where `srcsafe.ini` resides.	No
failonerror	Stop the build process if `ss.exe` exits with a return code 100.	No; defaults to true

Examples

Set the current VSS project to $/Projects/ant.

<vsscp vsspath="$/Projects/ant"/>

VssCreate

Description

Task to perform CREATE commands to Microsoft Visual Source Safe.

Creates a new project in VSS.

Parameters

Attribute	Values	Required
login	username,password	No
vsspath	SourceSafe path of project to be created	Yes
ssdir	directory where `ss.exe` resides.	No; by default expected to be in `PATH`
quiet	suppress output	No; defaults to off
failOnError	fail if there is an error creating the project.	No; defaults to true
autoresponse	What to respond with (sets the `-I` option). By default, `-I-` is used; values of Y or N will be appended to this.	No
comment	The comment to use for this label. Empty or - for no comment.	No

Examples

Create the VSS Project $/existingProject/newProject.

<vsscreate vsspath="$/existingProject/newProject"/>

Microsoft Visual SourceSafe Tasks User Manual

Contents

Introduction

The Tasks

Task Descriptions

VssGet

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssLabel

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssHistory

Description

Parameters

Specifying the time-frame

Examples

VssCheckin

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssCheckout

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssAdd

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssCp

Description

Parameters

Examples

VssCreate

Description

Parameters

Examples