Comprehensive guide to using GIT/source control for NAV 2016+ development

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I am already familiar with GIT and source control... but I am looking to understand how to use it for Navision development. Just simple version/change tracking would be enough for me at the moment... so I would like to understand how I can export objects automatically to save them in a local git repo. (I'll worry about merging later).

Is there a good guide that shows every step of how to achieve this?

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Stefano Demiliani 37,166 Most Valuable Professional on at

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You have GIT native support only with VSCODE and AL. For C/AL you can automate a process where you export all the NAV Objects as TXT with Export-NavApplicationObject Powershell cmdlet and then save them on a GIT repo for source control.

[View:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.dynamics.nav.ide/export-navapplicationobject]

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Right - the "automate a process..." is what I am interested in. Is there a certain strategy to go by? For instance.. I see you can export with filters to say "codeunits 1-10" - do people do this and save groups of CUs into a single txt file? I am wondering what the best practice is. Should I do that or should I always save individual CUs into separate txt files? Does it matter?

I could see separate files as the way to go - just so that if I am reviewing a file's change history I know there aren't other things contained in the file I am looking at. Seems cleaner that way.

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Hannes Holst 5,767 on at

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Yes - definitly seperate files. Otherwise you would store always one big file even when you only change a caption.

Not sure about GIT, I did once work with a self-build version control which triggered the VC-application per command line or it did support a directory scan (so that you don't have to import manually).

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Stefano Demiliani 37,166 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Yes, individual files absolutely. So you can track changes for every objects.

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Jesper Kenborg 10 on at

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If you want to have a source control for NAV/BC that is let complex than GIT, then I can recommend you look at the source control solution from NAVToolbox. You can get up running in 5 minutes and there is not required any additional NAV/BC license or objects. Check it out on www.NAVToolbox.com

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