I am currently the only developer on a MS Access project, but we may soon be adding developers onto to the project. This will be my first time sharing the load on a single MS Access project and I'm a bit clueless as to what versioning system (ex. SubVersion) might work best. Any suggestions on programs I should be taking a look at or staying away from? Thanks for your help!
A:
The problem you will run into with versioning access databases using a regular version control system is that you will not be able to merge any changes from one revision to the next because of the access file's binary format. As far as which one to choose, take a look at these 2 posts by Martin Fowler: VersonControlTools VCSSurvey
One tip I have to offer in this regard is to have 2 access databases. One will hold your data (only tables). The other one will link to the fist database and will also hold all the other stuff, like reports and forms and such. This will allow you to update the database "code" without losing data or having to worry about migrating it to the new database.
TskTsk
2010-04-02 14:27:43
We do have our data in SQL Server, so that does eliminate the need to separate the database. Thanks for the links, I'm checking those out now :-)
Melissa L
2010-04-02 15:12:29
Access for 15+ years has supported Visual Source safe. Taking a bunch of source code in c++ or bunch of text files for an access application does not change that you can use Visual Source Safe with Access. The fact that you build a local .exe from those many c++ files, or build a local mde (or mdb) file from that source code control system is NOT relevant here. This is confusing logical views vs that of physical file views. Access simply distills out the source code library from VSS into a single file local build, but each object is STILL treated separate by VSS and thats all that counts here.
Albert D. Kallal
2010-04-03 20:38:10
+1
A:
Start by looking at previous Stack Overflow answers to similar questions.
HansUp
2010-04-02 14:30:12
@Melissa No worries. I have used the SaveAsText method to save code modules and forms to a file share. It's crude but effective "light weight" version control. So far it's been good enough for me.
HansUp
2010-04-02 15:41:19
Yup, that is exactly what we need. I think the using the SaveAsText with WinMerge or something like it will be the best route for us.http://stackoverflow.com/questions/187506/how-do-you-use-version-control-with-access-development
Melissa L
2010-04-05 01:50:50
A:
You might want to take a look at Sourcesafe and the Access Developer Extensions, the latter of which is freely available for at least Access 2007.
bglenn
2010-04-03 22:50:05