Change Sets

Changes sets are the 'commits' of Rational Team Concert (in comparison to other source control systems). It is the fundamental unit of change for RTC.

The contents of any workspace, component, or stream can be expressed as a collection of change sets, beginning with the one created when the initial set of projects was checked in. A change set can include changes to the contents of individual files and changes to a component namespace (such as delete, rename, and move operations). A small change set might modify a few lines in a single file. A large one could include changes to the contents of many files, changes to file names, folder names, and folder contents. By grouping related changes and then applying them as a unit to a workspace or stream, Rational Team Concert source control guarantees that such groups of changes are made together or not at all.

A change set is implicitly created whenever you check in new work to your repository workspace. When you want to check in more changes to your repository, you can either add it to an existing change set or create a new change set.These change sets are queued in an outgoing change set list, where you can either write a comment about the change set or associate it to a work item.

The change set remains open and editable until it is delivered into the stream. Once it is delivered, the change set is recorded into the stream and everyone with access to the stream can view and download that change set. These change sets will be viewable to other workspace repository as incoming change sets. These incoming change sets can be selectively merged into their local repository or ignored completely.

Create new change set

Creating a new change set is easy.

  1. Perform any changes in your local repository (either with a code change or new file changes)
  2. Start the Rational Team Concert application.
  3. Make sure you are logged in to a Repository Connection. If not, log in using your Jazz.Net username and password.
  1. Right click on your repository workspace, select ShowPending Changes. The Pending Changes tab is selected.

  1. Click on the Refresh button and select Refresh Sandbox and Remote Changes
  1. Expand the component with the repository changes and right click the Unresolved folder and select Check-inNew Change set

  1. After the process is complete, you should now have an OutgoingChange set with the changes you have made to the repository.

Deliver change set

Delivering a change set is even easier.

  1. Right click the Change set and select Edit Comment to enter a comment on the change set.

  1. Right click the Outgoing folder and select deliver.

  1. After the changes have been delivered, the Outgoing folder should disappear.

Accept incoming change sets

Incoming change sets are the reverse or sending outgoing change sets.

  1. In the Pending Changes view, click on the Refresh button and select Refresh Sandbox and Remote Changes
  1. Right click on the Incoming folder and select Accept.
  1. The files should now be loaded into your local repository and you are in sync with the stream.