How do I figure out which changeset a label in TFS was applied to?

Question

We're using Team Foundation Server and we are using Labels to create points in our version history where specific versions (either internal or external) were produced.

Right now we were wondering if a particular changeset was done before or after a specific label (and thus included in that version or not), but we must be looking in the wrong place. This information is usually provided in the bug-tracking system but this time this field was left open so we thought we could use TFS to figure it out.

The version history for a file doesn't include labels applied. To find labels, the place I know to look is to use the "Get Specific Version" dialog, set type to Label and use the Label selection dialog to see which labels we've made, but this dialog doesn't tell me the changeset before/after the label was applied.

Is the only way to figure out if a particular change was part of that release or not to create a new workspace, map up the directory with the files to a temporary directory on disk, use the Get Specific Version dialog to extract that release and do a file-diff?

Please tell me how stupid I am and point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

Have you tried opening Source Control Explorer, File -> Source Control -> Labels -> Find Label? [EDIT: that may have been in a beta version, and I don't have TFS here atm...]

Also, are you using SideKicks? The Labels SideKick allows you to find a label and see the related changesets.

Answer 2

A label in TFS does not represent a specific point in time - and a label can actually be edited after the event. See the following posts for more information:

• Buck Hodges: Finding Changes between two labels in TFS VC
• Brian Harry: Why TFS Label are not like VSS Labels.

For this reason, I tend to use Changesets in TFS when recording the point in time for a particular release (in fact we label our binaries and installers with the actual changeset number that they were built from just to make it easier to track). (A changeset does represent a unique point in time for the state of the repository).

Hope this helps,

Martin.