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Rule versions review and comparison

Updated on June 7, 2021

Inspecting and comparing rule versions helps you resolve merge conflicts, review and debug code, and audit changes that a developer made while the rule was checked out.

For example, you can compare the rule that you currently work on with previously checked out versions of the rule, branched versions, or the same rule in other ruleset versions.

Depending on your needs, you can inspect and compare rules in Pega Platform in the following ways:

Viewing changes to a specific rule on the History tab of the rule
View changes to a rule by reviewing different versions of the rule.

For more information, see Viewing changes to a specific rule.

Viewing versions of a rule on the Actions menu on a rule form
View differences between the current rule and a selected version and modify your version of the rule.

For more information, see Comparing rule versions.

Comparing rules and rule versions with the Compare Rules tool
Compare two different rules or two versions of a rule. The tool displays results in a user- friendly, color-coded way. You also can use the tool to export the results to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

You can compare rules of the following types:

  • Activity
  • Data Transform
  • Function
  • Validate
  • Other technical rules that are text, such as the text files, JSP, and HTML rules.
For more information, see Comparing rules and rule versions with the Compare Rules tool.

Viewing changes to a specific rule

Get quick and full insight into the changes to a rule by reviewing different versions of the rule on the History tab of the rule.

  1. Open the rule that you want to compare.

    For more information, see Exploring rules in your application.

  2. On the rule form, click the History tab.
  3. In the History details section, click View full history.
  4. In the new window, click History for All Versions to display all versions of the rule.
  5. In the list that appears, select the Compare check box for each version of the rule that you want to compare.
    Note: If the current rule is checked out, the Compare With Checked Out button appears.
  6. If the current rule is checked out, to compare a rule version with the checked out version, select a version, and then click Compare With Checked Out.
  7. In the Differences Found report, select a rule to view the differences between the rule versions.

Comparing rule versions

Compare rule versions to resolve merge conflicts, debug code, and audit changes that application developers made during rule check out. You can compare a rule with versions of the rule from before the rule check out, with the branched versions, or with the same rule in other ruleset versions.

  1. In the navigation pane of Dev Studio, click Records.
  2. Expand the category that stores your rule, and then select a subcategory.
    For example: Click Process, and then click Service Level Agreement.
  3. In the list of rules, click the name of the rule for which you want to run the comparison.
  4. In the header of the rule form, click Actions.
  5. Click View versions, and then select the version of the rule that you want to compare with the current rule.
  6. View the list of differences between the current rule and the compared version.
    For the current rule, each list entry shows:
    • The type of changes.
    • The name of the changed page or property.
    • For modifications, the former and current values.
  7. If you review rules properties that store code, use a compare tool that provides a detailed view of changes between versions.
    1. Click Compare text on a difference that you want to examine to view all the changes between versions.
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      Tip: You can move to a specific change by clicking the drop-down arrow, and navigate between multiple changes by clicking the arrows.
    2. Optional: To make changes to the current version of the file, you can edit, add, or remove text.
    3. Optional: To replace a change in the currently edited rule with the version of the rule that you use in comparison, click the Revert chunk icon next to the change.
    4. Optional: To replace all your changes with the version of the rule that you are comparing to, click the Undo all changes icon.
    5. After you review the changes, click Done.
  8. Click the entry on the list to highlight the tab and element with the change on the current rule form.
  9. Optional: To see additional information about page and property changes, expand a list entry.
  10. If you make changes to the current rule in this view, click Save changes to compare your revisions.
    Note: If the Save changes option is not visible, it means that you do not have permission to make changes to the rule. To make and save changes to the rule, exit the Compare view and either check out the rule or save it into a branch.
  11. Optional: To compare the current rule with another version, select the other version from the list in the Compare Rule header. The view is refreshed with the revised change information.
  12. Click Exit compare to return to the rule form.

Comparing rules and rule versions with the Compare Rules tool

Apply the Compare Rules tool to two different rules or two versions of the same rule to identify and review changes between rules. The side-by-side comparison lets you quickly find the additions, deletions, or value changes that have occurred between two versions of a rule.

  1. In the header of Dev Studio, click ConfigureSystemRefactorRules.
  2. Click Compare Rules.
  3. In the Instance #1 section, specify the first rule by providing the following information:
    1. In the Rule Name field, enter the name of the rule that you want to compare.
    2. In the Rule Type field, click the displayed rule type and select a value from the list.
    3. In the Applies To field, select the class that contains the rule.
    4. In the RuleSet field, select the ruleset that contains the rule.
    5. In the Version field, select the ruleset version that contains the rule.
    6. Click Find.
  4. In the list of rules that appears, mark the Select field of the first rule that you want to compare.
  5. In the Instance #2 section of the new panel, select the second rule to compare by performing one of the following actions:
    • If the second rule instance that you want to compare is in the list, to select it, click the button beside the rule name.
    • If the second rule instance that you want to compare is not in the list, in the new panel, repeat actions from step 3, and then, in the list of rules that appears, mark the Select field of the second rule that you want to compare.
  6. Click Compare >> to generate the Differences Found report.
  7. In a selected column of the report, click a row entry that has a change to display the Comparison of rules form.
    The form displays the first selected rule in the left column and the second rule in the right column.

    The differences are color-coded:

    Yellow
    The values have changed in the two selected instances.
    Green
    At least one property value in the second rule is not present in the first rule. The first selected rule is presumed to be the source instance. Consequently, the changes highlighted in green are considered additions.
    Red
    At least one property with values in the first rule is not present in the second rule. The first selected rule is presumed to be the source instance. Consequently, these changes are deletions.

    If the screen displays code that includes more than one change, you can move among changes by clicking the left and right arrow keys at the top of the screen. You can also use the search field to locate a specific text string.

    Browse the changes by using the scroll bars at the right of each column. Each scroll bar controls both columns, which move together to maintain the relationship between the material displayed from each rule instance.

  8. Optional: To save the comparison results to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, click Export to Excel.

Tags

Pega Platform 8.7 Low-Code App Development

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