Using Git with DataFlex

Git is the preferred source code management solution that our product development team uses, and it’s a solution we recommend all developers to consider, as well.

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

With Git programmers can coordinate and organize their work and keep track of all changes made to their source-codes. Git was created by Linus Torvalds and nowadays every developer knows two very famous online services that offer the functionality of Git: Bitbucket by Atlassian and GitHub by GitHub, Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018.

If you are new to version control system concepts, I suggest that you start reading the article Using GIT for DataFlex Development from DataFlex Wiki, and the article Version Control Software Comparison: Git, Mercurial, CVS, SVN.

Developers already using SVN and considering the adoption of Git will find these articles useful, too:

• Migrating from Subversion to Git with svn2git on Windows (the tricky bits explained)
• Migrating to Git from SVN

Recently Data Access’ Dennis Piccioni led a class at the DISD 2020 conference on Using Git for Source Control (view PPT). In the class, Dennis provided a sample .gitignore file as a shortcut to help DataFlex developers configure their Git environment for use with DataFlex application development.

Since then, I have expanded the sample .gitignore file for my own use and it’s now here available for the developer community - feel free to use this code to help launch your new journey with Git!

# Files to be ignored by git in a DataFlex workspace

# AppHtml
**/apphtml/global.asa

# AppSrc
**/appsrc/**/*.prn
**/appsrc/**/*.dep
**/appsrc/**/*.exe.manifest
**/appsrc/**/*.err
**/appsrc/**/*.fld
**/appsrc/**/*.pbg
**/appsrc/**/*.pdp
**/appsrc/**/*.pkd
**/appsrc/**/*.prn
**/appsrc/**/*.prp

# Data
**/data/**/*.log
**/data/**/*.dat
**/data/**/*.vld
**/data/**/*.k*
**/data/**/*.bad
**/data/**/*.hdr
**/data/**/*.cch

# DDSrc
**/ddsrc/**/*.def

# IdeSrc
**/idesrc/*.dsk
**/idesrc/*.loc
**/idesrc/*.mtd

# Programs
**/programs/*.dbg
**/programs/*.exe
**/programs/*.exe.manifest
**/programs/*.log