Overview

Patch version control enables you to set a numeric patch version that records all additions, deletions, and updates made to schema entities (for example, methods, properties, constants, and so on) until a new patch version number is set and the patch version history is optionally removed when the changed entities in the previous patch version are extracted or a new JADE system is installed. See also "Change Control and Patch Versioning Considerations", in Chapter 1.

Patch version control covers all metadata changes; for example, interfaces, the Relational Population Service (RPS), imported WSDL files, and so on.

Patch versioning, which is completely independent of deltas and the associated change control, enables you to:

From the JADE development environment, the Browse menu provides the Patches command, which enables you to maintain a patch number or obtain a patch summary.

For details, see "Maintaining Patch Numbers" or "Displaying a Patch History Summary". For details about setting up patch control information for a new schema, see "Defining a Schema", in Chapter 3 of the JADE Development Environment User’s Guide.

The JADE Installation Preferences dialog provides the Patch menu, which contains the patch version administration commands listed in the following table.

Command For details, see… Description
Enable / Disable Enabling or Disabling Patch Versioning Enables or disables patch versioning for your database
Set Patch Number Setting Up a Patch Number Sets a new patch version number
Extract Patch Extracting a Patch Version Extracts all changed entities in the current patch version
Recreate History Recreating a History of Patch Version Changes Recreates the history of changes in the current patch version
Remove Patch History Removing a Patch History of Changes Removes the patch history that matched specified criteria

For details about enabling patch control extensions (for example, to enable users to select the patch number with which they want to work), see the EnablePatchControlExtensions parameter under "JADE Patch Control Extensions [JadePatchControlExtensions]", in the JADE Initialization File Reference. When patch control extensions are enabled, the patch control hook is called for every entity that is added to the patch history, so that partial packages can be extracted and loaded.

As a patch version has two keys (the JADE release version and the patch version), when you change JADE release versions the patch version is changed from 6.3.12.patch-number to 6.3.14.patch-number, for example.

If you require patch versioning when you have upgraded to a new JADE release version, you must enable patch versioning manually, as the new patch version is not automatically enabled.

If you want to override existing patch versions in entities when loading a schema (that is, you do not want to retain the patch number or numbers specified in a loaded schema file), see "Loading Schemas using the Schema Load Utility" or "overridePatchVersion", in the JADE Schema Load User's Guide, or "Specifying Advanced Load Options", in Chapter 10 of the JADE Development Environment User’s Guide.