Re: Rephrasing: question about merging branches

[Derek Robert Price]

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If branch A and branch B in your example don't branch form the same
point on the trunk, a merge from point 2 to point 4 into the trunk might
still not do what you want.  If branch B branched first, then 2->4 may
back out changes made to the trunk between the base of B and the base of
A.  If A branched first, then 2->4 will attempt to remerge changes made
to the trunk between the base of A and the base of B, causing the same
sort of spurious conflicts you were attempting to avoid.

The only clean way to do this in the general case is to tag branch B
before and after your merge from A at point 3 and merge B back into the
trunk as two merges:

~    cvs up -j 1 -j pre-3
~    cvs up -j post-3 -j 4

Please note that I am using numeric tags in the above example, per the
ascii art below, despite the fact that tags that start with a number are
invalid.

Derek

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David Wood wrote:

|I would say your ascii graphic is admirable!
|
|What you are saying matches what I'm seeing in tests, and I think I get it
|now.
|
|I believe my problem has been a silly confusion with the way update -j -j
|works.
|
|I understand a merge between 1 and 4 (and for that matter, a reverse-merge
|between 4 and 1) well enough.
|
|Essentially, I mistakenly envisioned a merge between 3' and 4 - rather
|than 2 and 4. Hence my fear about loss or mistreatment of changes before
|the child-to-child merge.
|
|I think what all this means is that branchB is now essentially merging
|against branchA (having received common chagnes by, and resolved conflicts
|with) branchA... and the merge delta with the trunk must now use branchA
|(at point 2) as a reference point in order to correctly reflect changes
|against the trunk.
|
|It is potentially confusing, but you have made it seem very simple. Thank
|you!
|
|-David
|
|Jamie Wellnitz <address@hidden> wrote on 11/04/2003 11:50:35
|AM:
|
|>Sorry for the ascii graphic in advance . . .
|>
|>If you have (* indicates merge point):
|>
|>branchA and branchB originated from trunk at point 1.
|>branchA merged to trunk at point 2 on branchA and 2' on trunk.
|>branchA then merged to branchB at point 3 on branchA and 3' on branchB.
|>Now, we want to merge branchB (point 4) to the trunk (4').
|>
|>              branchA  2    3
|>            /---------\-----\-------->
|>         1 /           \     \           4'
|>trunk ------------------*---- \ ---------*---->
|>           \            2'     \        /
|>            \-------------------*------/-->
|>              branchB           3'     4
|>
|>I think you want the common ancestor of the current branchB tip and
|>trunk tip.  That would be point2 on branchA.  (This is assuming you
|>did a full merges, not just a few changes, from A->trunk and A->B.)
|>So assuming you put tags down to keep track of the merge points, you
|>might try (on the trunk):
|>
|>cvs update -j point2 -j point4
|>
|>It looks like my point2 is your "first child merge point" and "second
|>child" is the tip of branchB (where you put a tag before the merge).
|>
|>Which changes before the "first child merge point" are you wondering
|>about?
|>
|>Thanks,
|>Jamie Wellnitz
|>address@hidden
|>
|>On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 11:06:44AM -0500, David Wood wrote:
|>
|>>Let me try to put it another way.
|>>
|>>I have a parent branch, and it has two child branches. If I want one
|
|child
|
|>>to merge to the parent, and then to the other child, how does that
|
|other
|
|>>child later merge to the parent as well?
|>>
|>>Is it (on the parent): update -j first_child_merge_point -j second
|
|child
|
|>>If so, what happens to changes from before the
|
|first_child_merge_point?
|
|>>-David
|>>

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