Re: Mergening into multiple branches

[Kaz Kylheku]

address@hidden (Peter S. Shenkin) wrote in message news:<address@hidden>...
> "Boris Tabenkin" <address@hidden> wrote in message news:<address@hidden>...
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am new to cvs. We are trying to find a way that a file that is the same in
> > multiple branches can be updated in these multiple branches without having
> > to be merged by hand. The scenario is this. When a release is shipped a
> > branch is made. In the future a bug is discovered in that old release. Now
> > when the bug is fixed we want the change to propagate to that branch and to
> > the head of the tree.
> 
> I've not found a way to do this, though mcvs (Meta-CVS) is said to
> be able to automate this process.

To clarify, Meta-CVS automates the branching and merging capabilities
inherent in CVS; it does not currently extend the model to support
``wrong way'' merges (to borrow Brad Appleton's term). You would still
want to fix the bug in the branch corresponding to that old release,
and merge it properly to the trunk.

The difference is that this Right Thing is easier to do, so you don't
have to look for more convenient workarounds:

  mcvs sw old-release-branch
  # fix bug in old release
  mcvs ci  # commit
  mcvs sw  # switch to trunk
  mcvs merge old-release-branch
  # resolve any conflicts, commit

There are a number of difficulties to overcome in order to support
any-to-any merging, so I have shelved it for now.