Terminology can vary from system to system, but
some terms in common usage include:(Taken from Wikipedia)
Baseline
An approved revision of a document or source file
from which subsequent changes can be made. See baselines, labels
and tags.
Branch
A set of files under version control may be
branched or forked at a point in time so that, from that time
forward, two copies of those files may develop at different speeds
or in different ways independently of each other.
Change
A change (or diff, or delta) represents a
specific modification to a document under version control. The
granularity of the modification considered a change varies between
version control systems.
Change list
On many version control systems with atomic
multi-change commits, a change list (or CL), change set, update, or
patch identifies the set of changes made in a single commit. This
can also represent a sequential view of the source code, allowing
the examination of source "as of" any particular changelist
ID.
Checkout
To check out (or co) is to create a local working
copy from the repository. A user may specify a specific revision or
obtain the latest. The term 'checkout' can also be used as a noun
to describe the working copy.
Clone
Cloning means creating a repository containing
the revisions from another repository. This is equivalent to
pushing or pulling into an empty (newly initialized) repository. As
a noun, two repositories can be said to be clones if they are kept
synchronized, and contain the same revisions.
Commit
To commit (check in, ci or, more rarely, install,
submit or record) is to write or merge the changes made in the
working copy back to the repository. The terms 'commit' and
'checkin' can also be used as nouns to describe the new revision
that is created as a result of committing.
Conflict
A conflict occurs when different parties make
changes to the same document, and the system is unable to reconcile
the changes. A user must resolve the conflict by combining the
changes, or by selecting one change in favour of the other.
Delta compression
Most revision control software uses delta
compression, which retains only the differences between successive
versions of files. This allows for more efficient storage of many
different versions of files.
Dynamic stream
A stream in which some or all file versions are
mirrors of the parent stream's versions.
Export
exporting is the act of obtaining the files from
the repository. It is similar to checking out except that it
creates a clean directory tree without the version-control metadata
used in a working copy. This is often used prior to publishing the
contents, for example.
Fetch
See pull.
Forward integration
The process of merging changes made in the main
trunk into a development (feature or team) branch.
Head
Also sometimes called tip, this refers to the
most recent commit, either to the trunk or to a branch. The trunk
and each branch have their own head, though HEAD is sometimes
loosely used to refer to the trunk.[7]
Import
importing is the act of copying a local directory
tree (that is not currently a working copy) into the repository for
the first time.
Initialize
to create a new, empty repository.
Interleaved deltas
some revision control software uses Interleaved
deltas, a method that allows to store the history of text based
files in a more efficient way than by using Delta
compression.
Label
See tag.
Mainline
Similar to trunk, but there can be a mainline for
each branch.
Merge
A merge or integration is an operation in which
two sets of changes are applied to a file or set of files. Some
sample scenarios are as follows:
A user, working on a set of files, updates or
syncs their working copy with changes made, and checked into the
repository, by other users.[8]
A user tries to check in files that have been
updated by others since the files were checked out, and the
revision control software automatically merges the files
(typically, after prompting the user if it should proceed with the
automatic merge, and in some cases only doing so if the merge can
be clearly and reasonably resolved).
A branch is created, the code in the files is
independently edited, and the updated branch is later incorporated
into a single, unified trunk.
A set of files is branched, a problem that
existed before the branching is fixed in one branch, and the fix is
then merged into the other branch. (This type of selective merge is
sometimes known as a cherry pick to distinguish it from the
complete merge in the previous case.)
Promote
The act of copying file content from a less
controlled location into a more controlled location. For example,
from a user's workspace into a repository, or from a stream to its
parent.[9]
Pull, push
Copy revisions from one repository into another.
Pull is initiated by the receiving repository, while push is
initiated by the source. Fetch is sometimes used as a synonym for
pull, or to mean a pull followed by an update.
Repository
The repository is where files' current and
historical data are stored, often on a server. Sometimes also
called a depot.
Resolve
The act of user intervention to address a
conflict between different changes to the same document.
Reverse integration
The process of merging different team branches
into the main trunk of the versioning system.
Revision
Also version: A version is any change in form. In
SVK, a Revision is the state at a point in time of the entire tree
in the repository.
Share
The act of making one file or folder available in
multiple branches at the same time. When a shared file is changed
in one branch, it is changed in other branches.
Stream
A container for branched files that has a known
relationship to other such containers. Streams form a hierarchy;
each stream can inherit various properties (like versions,
namespace, workflow rules, subscribers, etc.) from its parent
stream.
Tag
A tag or label refers to an important snapshot in
time, consistent across many files. These files at that point may
all be tagged with a user-friendly, meaningful name or revision
number. See baselines, labels and tags.
Trunk
The unique line of development that is not a
branch (sometimes also called Baseline, Mainline or Master)
Update
An update (or sync, but sync can also mean a
combined push and pull) merges changes made in the repository (by
other people, for example) into the local working copy. Update is
also the term used by some CM tools (CM+, PLS, SMS) for the change
package concept (see changelist). Synonymous with checkout in
revision control systems that require each repository to have
exactly one working copy (common in distributed systems)
Working copy
The working copy is the local copy of files from
a repository, at a specific time or revision. All work done to the
files in a repository is initially done on a working copy, hence
the name. Conceptually, it is a sandbox.