 There are many situations that require changes to be made in parallel – an emergency fix, concurrent development or maintenance, multiple release development or maintenance, customization of vendor application code – but you need a common process for managing the consolidation of those changes. You need a tool that will allow you to: Identify components The IBM Merge Tool allows you to match up Base File members with other members having the same name from one or two other files (File 1 and File 2). Based on the match up of the members, components that require merging are easily identified. Analyze complexity The IBM Merge Tool allows you to build a preliminary work file to obtain member statistics, including the number of conflicts found. These statistics will give you a better understanding of how many conflicts there are and the resources required for the merge process. Merge and review changes The merge process generates a marked-up work file that shows inserts, deletions and overlap/conflict areas. Address merge conflicts You can edit the work file from within the IBM Merge Tool and resolve conflicts before generating your final Merge File. Create merged source Once any conflicts have been addressed, you're ready to generate the merge file. Merge Tool reads the work file as input and performs the insertions and deletions indicated in the file in order to generate the merge file output . The merge file contains the merged source code which can then be stored in your Software Configuration Management (SCM) tool or used as input to a compile. Test merged output The final step is to compile and link the merged source code and test the changes. The IBM Merge Tool for z/OS and OS/390 provides the tools required by both project managers and application developers to manage the process of parallel development. - ISPF Workbench - A simple to use ISPF interface provides access to the Merge Tool actions and reports.
- Merge Tool Action - A variety of actions are available to perform merge tasks. The user can determine the degree of merge action based on the complexity of the changes.
- Reports - The IBM Merge Tool provides reports to aid in the assessment of source consolidation. The Statistics file is particularly useful in identifying and sizing a consolidation effort.
- Work File - The work file or marked-up file is produced by the merge process. Application developers can edit this file in order to review the changes and resolve any merge conflicts before generating the final merge result.
- Batch Utility - A batch utility is available to perform most Merge Tool actions in batch.
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