Question

I’m working on an ASP.NET MVC website. Each time I do important modifications, I copy/paste the entire folder of my solution and rename it something like MySolution v1.1, next time MySolution v1.2, … In that way, I can always step back easily and keep versions. But I always have problems with the database.

Example:

• I work on MySolution v1.1 with the database in the App_Data named MyDB1.mdf
• I copy/paste previous version in MySolution v1.2 folder
• I cannot run successfully this newly created solution because Visual Studio will try to recreate the database named MyDB1.mdf but this one already exist (in the previous folder).
• I had to change database name in the connectionstring of the web.config file and clean the App_Data folder.

This is not a good way of doing things. Furthermore, I lost my data in my DB because I delete it each time.

Does someone can give me advices for versioning my different solutions?

I hope I was clear.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I’d suggest using a revision control system, such as Subversion or Mercurial (using TortoiseHG). This way, you can just revert to a previous version of your code if you don’t like the changes you made.