I had a task recently that involved automating communication with TFS server. I was rather unpleasantly surprised by lack of information in on line help on this subject. Granted, there were definitions of classes that are used for such task on MSDN, but no examples. Sad situation indeed. After some research, I was able to complete my task. It was indeed a trial and error process. The function below gets the latest from specified branch, using local path and server name as parameters. It only pull list of files from that folder, doing one level recursion.

Disclaimer:

This is a quick and dirty function I put together for my needs:

''' <summary>

''' Populates dataset with list of items from TFS server

''' </summary>

''' <param name="path">Local path to get the latest for such as c:sourcesomefolder</param>

''' <param name="serverName">Server name such as TFSServer</param>

''' <returns>True if no errors are thrown</returns>

''' <remarks></remarks>

Private Function GetFolderHistory(ByVal path As String, ByVal serverName As String) As Boolean

Dim returnValue As Boolean = True

Try

'create server object

Dim server As New TeamFoundationServer(serverName)

' create source control object

Dim version As VersionControlServer = CType(server.GetService(GetType(VersionControlServer)), VersionControlServer)

' limit based on changeset id

changeSetNumber = CInt(txtChangeSet.Text)

' paramters for getting latest call

' list of items to get

Dim itemSpecs As New List(Of ItemSpec)

'only specify local path

itemSpecs.Add(New ItemSpec(path, RecursionType.OneLevel))

'only get the latest

Dim versionSpec As VersionSpec = versionSpec.Latest

' get history data

Dim history As BranchHistoryTreeItem()() = version.GetBranchHistory(itemSpecs.ToArray, versionSpec)

' clear dataset with results

ItemsDataSet.Items.Clear()

Dim name As String

Dim changed As DateTime

Dim changeSetID As Integer

' run through items - 2- dimensional array of history

For counter As Integer = 0 To history.Length - 1

For counter1 As Integer = 0 To history(0).Length - 1

Dim item As BranchHistoryTreeItem = history(counter)(counter1)

' get each items's propeties

name = item.Relative.BranchToItem.ServerItem.Substring(item.Relative.BranchToItem.ServerItem.LastIndexOf("/") + 1)

changed = item.Relative.BranchToItem.CheckinDate

changeSetID = item.Relative.BranchToItem.ChangesetId

' compare to minimim change set id

If changeSetID > changeSetNumber Then

If item.Relative.BranchToItem.ItemType = ItemType.File Then

ItemsDataSet.Items.Rows.Add(New Object() {name, changed, changeSetID})

End If

End If

Next

Next

' update UI

ItemsBindingSource.DataSource = ItemsDataSet

grdItems.Sort(grdItems.Columns(2), System.ComponentModel.ListSortDirection.Descending)

If grdItems.Rows.Count > 0 Then

grdItems.Rows(grdItems.Rows.GetFirstRow(DataGridViewElementStates.None)).Selected = True

End If

Catch ex As Exception

MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Script", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error)

returnValue = False

End Try

Return returnValue

End Function