The Merge plugin for Visual SourceSafe is included with Merge and enables Merge to access files located within a Visual SourceSafe database. You must also install the Visual SourceSafe client tools on your computer.
Merge v6.5.2105 onwards
-
The plugin is included as a standard part of the Merge installation.
Merge v6.5.2104 and earlier
-
The plugin uses the Microsoft .NET Framework, which must be installed before the plugin.
What you can do with the plugin
Using the plugin, you can (for example) perform a folder comparison to compare your Visual SourceSafe working directories against the database. Alternatively, you could directly compare different branches (or the same branch at different points in time) within the database.
The plugin provides read-only access to the Visual SourceSafe database. To modify files within the database, you will need to use one of the Visual SourceSafe tools to open/edit/submit files.
Using the Visual SourceSafe plugin
To specify a file or project within a Visual SourceSafe database, prefix the path to the file or project with vss: to form a URI. A user name, password, and path to the SRCSAFE.INI file can be included in the URI, as shown in the examples
below.
Examples
| URI | Description |
|---|---|
vss://$/notepad |
Specifies the most recent version of the project $/notepad. |
vss://$/notepad/notepad.cpp |
Specifies the most recent revision of the file $/notepad/notepad.cpp. |
vss://$/notepad;2000/03/23 |
Specifies the project $/notepad, as it was on 23rd March 2000. Please note that the only supported date and time format is the locale-independent format YYYY/MM/DD[ HH:MM:SS]. |
vss://$/notepad;5 |
Specifies revision 5 of the project $/notepad. |
vss://$/notepad/notepad.cpp;43 |
Specifies revision 43 of file $/notepad/notepad.cpp. |
vss://jrs@c:\vss\srcsafe.ini/$/notepad/notepad.cpp |
As above, but connecting to a database whose SRCSAFE.INI is located at c:\vss\srcsafe.ini, as user jrs with no password. |
vss://jrs:wibble@c:\vss\srcsafe.ini/$/notepad/notepad.cpp |
As above, but specifying a password wibble. |
vss://jrs:*@c:\vss\srcsafe.ini/$/notepad/notepad.cpp |
As above, but specifying that Merge should prompt for a password to be entered. This ensures that the password is not shown on the screen or within comparison reports. |
Note that if a username is specified, a path to the SRCSAFE.INI file must also be specified.
Known problems
The Visual SourceSafe API does not provide a way to obtain the sizes of files within the database. Merge assumes a file size of 1 kilobyte for all files in the database.
The Visual SourceSafe API is not very robust. In particular, if two or more folder comparisons attempt concurrently to access
the same SourceSafe database, some of the file operations may fail. Failed file comparisons can be re-attempted using the
Re-Test Selected 
command.