Source Safe with Access 1

[Pisi]

We have an Access database and 4-5 developers.
The queries, reports, forms are developed on a local copy of the database and then the objects are exported in the production mdb file.

This activity takes time and creates problems with the latest versions of the objects.

Did you use Visual Source Safe with Access? Can you share some of your experience?

Thank you,

Ioan

 

[DonQuichote]

I do use sourcesafe with Access, but alas I'm the only one in our department. I am mainly using it to have my shared classes updated in all the applications that use them. Because that may sound a bit dangerous, I always share both the classes themselves AND their unit tests. This way (along with the compile command), I can see if the Access application is still working properly with the new versions and their interactions.

There are a few drawbacks to using Access with sourcesafe, which are mainly bugs in Access. Sometimes, changes in code just won't get recognized. That is, you changed something, you'd swear you did and saved it at least three times, and you still see yesterday's code. It does not matter if the changes were typed in or imported from sourceSafe.
To overcome this, decompile, compact and compile regularly. It helps!

Another drawback is that you can store tables (data) in sourceSafe. Just don't.

What I do to deliver a database is make a copy of my (local) development database, delete the unit test classes, decompile, compact and compile, and then move it to the production directory. We use a custom database property to distinguish between development environment and production environment, so that variable must be set right also. It's a bit of work, but I don't mind.

Best regards