Git Basics

Git Basics – External Resources

• Essential Git

• Git for Beginners

Why Use Git

• Source of truth

  • Every finished feature / user story is stored in Git

  • If there is a difference between Git and partition content, Git is expected to have the correct version

• Versioning of project configuration

• Cooperation of several developers on a project

• Used to deploy a project to a partition (manually or automatically)

What Files to Store in Git

Generally, complete project configuration must be in Git to facilitate potential recreation of the partition from scratch.

Versioned Files

• Configuration

  • Tables definition metadata, e.g. folders:

    • PricingParameter

    • ProductAttribute

    • ProductExtension

  • Logics definition and Groovy code, e.g. folders:

    • CalculationLogic

    • Workflow Formula

  • Configuration settings, e.g. folders:

    • AdvancedConfiguration

    • Preference

    • QuoteType

    • SavedChart

• Project settings

  • .gitignore – This is vital, so that developers do not accidentally commit files not relevant to the Pricefx project.

  • pom.xml – The Project Object Model file (POM) is an XML file that contains information about the project and configuration details used by Maven to build the project. We use it for referencing of our unit testing (TDD4C) libraries and for Studio’s debug functionality. The POM file is not needed for standard work using the Fetch/Test/Deploy actions, but it is a good practice to have the file in the project anyway. This file can be generated by the Pricefx studio plugin.

  • config.json – This file should generally NOT be in the versioning system, but as it does not contain any sensitive information, it could be beneficial for the team members to share this file too. Note that the previous version of the file (config.groovy) should never appear in the version control, because it contains information which is specific to a specific developer. The config.json contains information for connecting Studio to a Pricefx partition – particularly partition name and server URL. The username and password is stored in IntelliJ, not in the file.

Not Versioned Files

• Data

  • Data are managed by customers, so we do not store it in the version control system due to their size and volatility.

  • Backup of data is always in the database backup of the server.

• Exceptions

  • The only exception is the data used as "project/partition settings" which are managed by the solution implementation team (not by customer) and are not changed regularly.

  • Such data are usually stored in Price Parameters, and Studio supports deployment of such CSV data to the Price Parameter table.

Interaction of Git with Other Tools

Let’s recap here how Git fits into the landscape and how it interacts with other tools.

Local GIT repository:

• Stored on developer computer (in .git folder under project working folder)

• Used on daily basis to store snapshots of the working versions of the project user stories or features

Remote GIT repository:

• Stored on DevOps/Source Collaboration platform

• Used for synchronization/cooperation among developers

Pricefx Git Workflow

While implementing a solution, all developers should use the same common workflow in Git. You can see all important aspects of the workflow in the picture.

If you are familiar with GitFlow, you will find this flow quite similar. The main reason for differences is that in Pricefx case, the configuration can only be tested against some partitions.

Branches

• master – Used to store production version of the project. This version is also deployed on Production partition.

• qa – Stores version of project deployed on QA server and tested by customer. This version is also deployed on QA partition.

• dev – The latest working version of development with all finished features.

• feature/XXXX-XXXX – Keeps project version specific for development of one user story or feature. Each user story or feature (usually one JIRA ticket) should be versioned in one feature branch. The JIRA ticket number is then used as the name of the feature branch (the ticked ID is represented here by XXXX-XXXX) Every feature needs to be tested during the development on the customer-dev partition.

Partitions

Every project has typically partitions:

• customer – Partition name is based on the customer name. It is used for production version of the project and customer’s end-users use it daily.

• customer-qa – Partition with suffix "-qa" is typically used for UAT (User Acceptance Testing) of new features by the customer.

• customer-dev – Partition used by the implementation and integration team for testing of newly developed features / user stories.

Branches vs. Partitions

You will notice that branches do not match exactly partitions. Specifically, the dev and feature/XXXX-XXXX branches share the same partition for testing purposes.

This is because it is not practical (and sometimes not even possible) to have one partition for each feature branch. One reason for not having one to one relation can be the size of data you might need to replicate for each partition.

The development team should establish some rules regarding the dev partition. Thought should be given to how the team will share the dev partition, while testing different feature configurations, while not overriding somebody else’s configuration.

Pricefx "GitFlow"

When working in Git, a common flow should be used. GitFlow was considered but since there are some specifics to the Pricefx development, we adopted GitFlow with a few changes. The main reason for these differences is that the configuration can only be tested against some partitions.

Differences to standard GitFlow:

• hotfix branch is not really needed since we do not have a matching environment. hotfixes therefore can be committed to the master branch.

• We do not use multiple release branches, we only use a single qa release branch holding the latest release. This is because there is no way to use the previous release without the partition. A release commit can be tagged with a release name.