Microsoft KB Archive/165883

= Errors with Large Recursive Branch and Share Operations =

Article ID: 165883

Article Last Modified on 2/24/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 5.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 6.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0a
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0a

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This article was previously published under Q165883



SUMMARY
While executing a recursive Share and Branch operation on a SourceSafe project that contains a large number of files and 4 or more nested subprojects, the operation fails with a General Protection Fault, Out of Memory message or other memory related problems.



MORE INFORMATION
Sharing and Branching is an expensive operation in SourceSafe. Because the operation itself involves intensive memory usage and file I/O, any problems at the operating system or network level could cause it to fail. Once completed, the Branch causes the SourceSafe database to grow in size as a second copy of each branched file is created. For these reasons, large Sharing and Branching should be used sparingly. The dobranch.exe utility provides an alternative method of Sharing and Branching that avoids the potential memory problems mentioned in the SUMMARY section.

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Dbrnch.exe

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file. Below is the content of the readme.txt files that are included with the utility. - This download consists of the following three files:
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 * 1) All text must be copied without modification and all pages must |
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 * without modification; 3) All components of this MSL file must be  |
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 * for profit.                                                       |
 * Copyright 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.        |
 * Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.     |
 * Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.     |


 * 1) This file (readme.txt)
 * 2) dobranch.exe
 * 3) dobranch.cpp

This utility can be used as an alternative method of performing a recursive share and branch of a SourceSafe project.

Dobranch.exe
The file dobranch.exe is the utility itself, and should be saved in the WIN32 directory under the SourceSafe installation.

Its usage is:

dobranch [new project name]

The operation is analogous to a right mouse drag and drop in the SourceSafe explorer. If your project tree looks like this:   $/ Applications Develop source include lib Bugfix Other Stuff and you right-click the $/Applications/Develop project, drag it over the $/Bugfix project, choose Share and branch from the popup menu, then check the "Recursive" checkbox, the equivalent command for this utility would be:

dobranch $/Bugfix $Applications/Develop

NOTE: You should provide the full path to the target and source projects.

Just like the drag and drop operation, this would create a new subproject:

$/Bugfix/Develop

that would have the three nested subprojects.

To share and branch to a sibling subproject of Develop, use the following command:

dobranch $/Applications $/Applications/Develop NewDev.

The project tree would then be:   $/ Applications Develop source include lib NewDev source include lib Bugfix Other Stuff If your project names contain spaces, wrap the project name in quotes. For example:

dobranch "$/Other Stuff" $/Applications/Develop "More Stuff"

to create the following project tree:   $/ Applications Develop source include lib Bugfix Other Stuff More Stuff source include lib The utility creates two text files in the Win32 subdirectory, dirfile.out and errfile.log. The first is the output from a recursive ss dir command of the source project, the second is a log file of errors encountered by the various Visual SourceSafe operations.

If the program is executed successfully, these files are deleted (you'll never know they were there).

If the utility fails, you can check errfile.log for clues about what caused the failure, and dirfile.out can be deleted manually (however, this is not necessary).

Dobranch.cpp
The file dobranch.cpp is the source code for dobranch.exe and can be examined to understand how the program works, and for those interested, can be modified to provide more functionality (for example, providing an extra parameter to specify a project version, or specifying the path to any SourceSafe database). It was compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.0 Most users, however, will not need to look at this file.

Additional Notes
 Branching a specific version.

There is no switch for this in dobranch.exe, but it can easily be accomplished by PINning the project before executing dobranch.exe. For example, if the $/Applications/Develop project has a label 'beta1', type the following command-line command before executing dobranch.exe

SS Pin $/Applications/Develop/*.* -Vbeta1

 Limitations of the utility.

Internal links within the source project are not be retained in the target project. For example, if a file in $/Apllications/Develop/lib is shared or branched to a file in $/Apllications/Develop/include, and you execute:

dobranch $/Applications $/Applications/Develop NewDev

the file in $/Applications/NewDev/lib will not have links to the file in $/Applications/NewDev/include.

Keywords: kbdownload kbfile KB165883

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