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Merge command (Team Foundation Version Control)

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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Visual Studio 2019 | Visual Studio 2022

The tf merge command applies changes from one branch into another in Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC).

Note

The results of this command aren't reflected in the Azure DevOps server until you do a check-in operation. For more information, see Develop code and manage pending changes.

Prerequisites

To use the merge command, you must have the Check out permission set to Allow for the workspace folder that contains the destination, and you must have the Read permission set to Allow for the workspace folder that contains the source. For more information, see Default TFVC permissions.

Syntax

tf merge [/recursive] [/force] [/candidate] [/discard] 
[/version:versionspec] [/lock:none|checkin|checkout] [/preview] 
[/baseless] [/nosummary] [/noimplicitbaseless] [/conservative] [/format:(brief|detailed)] [/noprompt] [/login:username,[password]] source destination

Parameters

Arguments

Argument

Description

<versionspec>

Provides a value such as C2 for the /version option. For more information about how TFVC parses a version specification to determine which items are within its scope, see Use Team Foundation version control commands.

<source>

Specifies the file or folder to act as the source of the merge.

<destination>

Specifies the file or folder to act as the destination of the merge.

<username>

Provides a value to the /login option. You can specify a username value as either DOMAIN\username or username.

Options

Option

Description

/recursive

Matches the source item specification in the current directory and any subfolders.

/force

Ignores the merge history and merges the specified changes from the source into the destination, even if some or all these changes have been merged before.

/candidate

Prints a list of all changesets in the source that haven't yet been merged into the destination. The list should include the changeset ID that hasn't been merged and other basic information about that changeset. An asterisk for a given result indicates that it was partially merged, meaning some of the changes in the changeset have been merged and other changes haven't been merged.

/discard

Doesn't do the merge operation, but updates the merge history to track that the merge occurred. This discards a changeset from being used for a particular merge.

/version

For a selective merge, this option specifies the range that should be merged into the destination. For a catch-up merge, this parameter specifies the version before which all un-merged changes should be merged.

For a selective merge, the version range denotes the beginning and end points of the set of changes to be merged. For example, if you attempt to merge version 4~6, the changesets 4, 5, and 6 are merged.

/lock

Specifies a lock type or removes a lock from an item. For more information, see Understand lock types.

Lock options:

  • None: Doesn't place a lock on an item, and removes any existing lock from the item.

  • Checkin: Other users can check out the specified items, but they can't check in revisions to locked files until you release the lock by performing a check-in. If any other users have locked any one of the specified items, the lock operation fails.

  • Checkout: Prevents users from checking in or checking out any one of the specified items until you explicitly release the lock. If any other users have locked any one of the specified items, or if there are existing pending changes against any item, the lock operation fails.

/preview

Shows a preview of the merge.

/baseless

Performs a merge without a base version. That is, allows the user to merge files and folders that don't have a merge relationship. After a baseless merge, a merge relationship exists, and future merges don't have to be baseless.

Note

Baseless merges can't delete files in the target. You can manually carry over such changes.

/noimplicitbaseless

Specifies that TFVC won't do an implicit baseless merge between two items that have the same relative name in two unrelated version-control trees.

/nosummary

Omits summary of conflicts, errors, and warnings.

/noprompt

Suppresses any prompts for input from you.

/conservative

Results in more conflicts when you merge one branch to another.

/format

Specifies the formats of summarizing merge conflicts:

  • Brief (default): Summarizes only the total number of conflicts, warnings, and errors.
  • Detailed: Summarizes not only the total number of conflicts, warnings, and errors, but also lists details about each conflict.

Note

This option applies only when the output contains a summary of conflicts. The summary can't be shown if the /nosummary option is used or the merge caused fewer than 10 conflicts, warnings, and errors.

/login

Specifies the user name and password to authenticate the user with Azure DevOps.

Remarks

You can use the merge command of the tf command-line utility to apply changes in an existing source branch to an existing target branch. You can merge an individual revision or a complete changeset to the target branch. You can merge changes from the source to the target branch or from the destination to the source branch.

The merge command also lets you query for changes in a source branch that haven't been migrated to the target branch. The command also lets you indicate that certain changes will never be merged from the source to the destination and should no longer be displayed as candidates for a merge operation.

For more information on how to use the tf command-line utility, see Use Team Foundation version control commands.

Baseless merge

Use baseless merge to merge items that aren't directly branched from each other. To do a baseless merge, you must use the tf merge command. When you do a baseless merge, TFVC doesn't have any information about the relationship of the files in the branches. In a baseless merge, you must do manual conflict resolutions. After you do the baseless merge and resolve any conflicts, TFVC records the merge history and establishes a relationship between the folders and files.

When you run tf merge, TFVC does an implicit baseless merge between items that have the same relative name in two previously related version-controlled trees. For example, you might want to merge the related branches $SRC and $TGT. Both branches contain an unrelated file that is named a.txt. When you run tf merge, TFVC establishes a relationship between the two a.txt files if the two files are the same, FIPS-compliant encryption is disabled, and the source file isn't related to any other file in the target.

If you run tf merge with the /noimplicitbaseless option set, when TFVC tries to merge the two branches, the two a.txt files create a namespace conflict when you try to check in the changes. To resolve the conflict, you must rename one of the files.

Examples

The following example merges changes from MyFile_beta1 that haven't been merged into MyFile_RTM.

c:\projects>tf merge MyFile_beta1 MyFile_RTM /recursive

The following example merges changeset 137 into branch2.

c:\projects>tf merge /version:C137~C137 branch1 branch2 /recursive

The following example merges all the changesets up to changeset 137 into branch2.

c:\projects>tf merge /version:C137 branch1 branch2 /recursive

The following example prints a list of the changesets in branch1 that haven't been merged into branch2.

c:\projects>tf merge /candidate branch1 branch2 /recursive

The following example prints a list of changesets in branch2 that haven't been merged back into branch1.

c:\projects>tf merge /candidate branch2 branch1 /recursive

The following example discards changeset 137 as a candidate for merging into branch2.

c:\projects>tf merge /discard /version:C137~C137 branch1 branch2 /recursive

The following example discards all the changesets up to changeset 137 as candidates for merging into branch2.

c:\projects>tf merge /discard /version:C137 branch1 branch2 /recursive