Known issues with SVN/Git source control

The SVN/Git source control options provided in the PowerBuilder IDE has been tested in the following environment:

  • The SVN feature has been fully tested against SVN server 1.7.1 and later.
  • The Git feature has been fully tested against GitHub, and also tested with GitLab, Bitbucket, Bonobo, and Perforce. Theoretically Git should work just as well with any remote repository, but we recommend that you try the tested Git servers if you experience problems.

  • The SVN/Git client that has been fully tested to work is: SVN client 1.9.7 and later, and Git client 2.0 and later.

  • The protocol of SVN/Git that has been fully tested to work is: HTTP and HTTPS.

The SVN/Git source control options provided in the PowerBuilder IDE has the following known issues:

  • When adding the workspace to the Bitbucket server using "Git Push", you may come across the "Reference was not fast-forwardable" error, if the repository on the Bitbucket server is created with a readme (the "Include a README" option set to "Yes, ..."). To resolve this error, you can first execute a "Git Pull" (to synchronize the server repository with the local repository) and then execute "Git Push" again.

  • If more than one developer are making changes to the same object and committing the object at the same time, conflicts will occur when synchronizing the object. We recommend you use the SVN client (such as TortoiseSVN) or Git client (such as TortoiseGit) to merge the changes. After you merge the changes, make sure the object can be compiled successfully by PowerBuilder, otherwise, the object may be missing or fail to open in the PowerBuilder IDE, or may cause the PowerBuilder IDE to crash.

  • If you use the new Git/SVN feature, OrcaScript would fail to create PBLs from source code, because OrcaScript still looks for the source code in the same directory that the PBL is located at, but the source code is is now stored in the ws_objects folder under the directory that the PBL is located at.

  • The newly added fields such as Password, Author, Email etc. in the Source Control tab in the Properties of Workspace dialog box do not have text pop-ups when you press F1 for the field, rather, pressing F1 may cause the PowerBuilder IDE to crash.

  • When PowerBuilder adds .pb* and .sr* files to SVN/Git source control, PowerBuilder enables auto-props and mark all the files with an svn:mime-type of application/octet-stream. As the result, the SVN or Git client will treat the files as binaries, which means that revisions on working copies can only be handled using Resolve Conflict, not Merge. (The reason for forbidding the merge operation is that the SVN or Git client will conflict marks (such as <<<<<>>>>>) into a file when merging conflicts, and such conflict marks may lead to application compilation failure).