Reversion (software development)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Wikipedia editing process, see Help:Revert.

In software development (and by extension in content editing evironments, especially wikis, that make use of the software development process of revision control), reversion or reverting is the abandonment of one or more recent changes in favor of a return to a previous version of the material at hand (typically software source code in the context of application development; HTML, CSS or script code in the context of web development; or content and formatting thereof in the context of wikis).

A revert may be done for a wide variety of reasons, including but not limited to: fixing errors introduced by previous edits; restoring the material to a state that was not contentious until new disputes can be resolved; undoing scope creep; regression testing; and even petty malice, vandalistic intent or personal unhappiness with the author of a previous change. While the process is generally agreed to be a sound and necessary one, particular instantiations of its use may be at least as controversial as the edits being reverted.