3

We are working on a large codebase in Visual Studio 2010 using TFS as version control system.

When performing merges we recently get a lot of encoding issues. For the most of them we get an option "Choose encoding and merge" for other files we get:

"The encodings for the files being merged must match or an encoding conversion must be specified."

We normally put every file in UTF-8, although we get conflicts when merging between codepage 1252 and utf-8.

To solve these issues we always perform a manual merge which can be quite cumbersome. How can we avoid these errors? What is the recommended encoding for source-code files in TFS? How can we recursively set the encoding to avoid errors like these in the future?

KatieK
  • 13,586
  • 17
  • 76
  • 90
Yoeri
  • 1,876
  • 15
  • 24

1 Answers1

4

You are getting the message because TFS thinks (correctly or incorrectly) that a file has different encodings in different branches. To double-check the encoding, go to the properties window of any source-controlled file.

Although TFS detects the encoding when a file is added to source control, if the encoding is later changed TFS will not always pick it up. Click the Set Encoding button and then click Detect to see what the actual encoding is. If it isn't what you expect, then check out the file, modify the encoding in a text editor, and then have TFS re-detect the encoding.

Once the encoding is the same in both branches you shouldn't get this error any longer.

Holistic Developer
  • 2,458
  • 1
  • 18
  • 27
  • Is there a way to change encodings of files for an entire branch? – Yoeri Oct 30 '12 at 19:57
  • 2
    You could try using PowerShell or another tool to [change the encoding in batch](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1681568/change-files-encoding-recursively-on-windows) on your local filesystem. Then you could use the [`tf checkout`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/query/dev10.query?appId=Dev10IDEF1&l=EN-US&k=k(VS.TFC.SOURCECONTROL.COMMANDCHECKOUT)&rd=true) command-line tool to change the encoding in TFS: `tf checkout /type:text /recursive .`. Not sure if that will work but it should give you a starting point. – Holistic Developer Oct 30 '12 at 22:17