Topic streams are temporary streams that you use for a set of defined changes, for example, to fix a defect or develop a small feature. Topic streams enable you to isolate your changes from a mainline. If you need to suspend work that is in progress, or isolate work into a dedicated stream, you can shelve the changes from a work area into a topic stream.
A pull request is a special type of review that you use to evaluate and merge a set of defined changes, typically in a topic stream.
A topic stream and its related pull request work together to help you manage and merge changes:
A topic stream is created from a parent stream, which creates a pull request.
Changes are delivered to the topic stream and related to the pull request.
The pull request is reviewed, approved, and merged into the topic stream’s parent.
When you create a pull request, you assign reviewers to it. Reviewers see the code changes on the Changes tab of a pull request. They can add comments about the changes, identify issues, make suggestions, and answer questions. When a comment is made, the pull request author and reviewers receive an email with a snippet of the code and the review comments.
When changes have been reviewed and approved, and if there are no conflicts between the topic stream and its parent, you can merge the pull request. This merges the contents of the topic stream into its parent stream without using a work area.
Rehome is a quick and easy way to switch a work area from one stream to another.
If you have a topic and parent stream that both contain changes, and you want to update the topic stream with the changes from its parent, you can rebase the topic stream.
For detailed information about topic streams and pull requests, including examples and scenarios, see the Dimensions CM User’s Guide available online on the documentation center.