Maintaining the Project File

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If you work in a group, you generally want to share the Project file (.dsp) for a project workspace with other members of your group. This ensures that everyone in the group can build the projects defined in the project workspace using the same files, settings, tools, and so on, as well as ensuring that everyone gets the changes to the Project file and builds with the most up-to-date settings.

Updating the Project file in a group setting requires some coordination among the members of the group in order for the process to work smoothly. In the optimal case, all members of the group get the Project file from source-code control when they open the project, but no one checks it out.

The system will prompt you to check out the Project file whenever it has determined that changes are necessary. However, you must remember to check it back in and notify the members of the group that it has been changed.

At this point, the other members of the group need to close the project workspace, then reopen it and get the new version of the Project file. If they have set the option to prompt to get the latest versions of files, opening the project workspace reminds them to get the latest version.

If two or more members of the group simultaneously check out the Project file and revise it, checking the Project file in could require merging changes. Because the system may write multiple settings to a single line of the Project file, and changes to settings by different users may alter a single line in two (or more) different places, reconciling those changes manually could result in errors.

Note   If your source-code control system supports exclusive check-outs, you should check the Project file out for exclusive use if you need to alter it.