Is this a bad idea: Merge File to File

Is it a bad idea to merge files directly? Should I urge my users to prefer
merges to branch root in-place of merging files directly?

I can merge any of these ways, but the file to file seems to result in
confusing problems
- branch-to-branch (svn merge url/branch1/ url/branch2)
- dir-to-dir (svn merge url/branch1/dir1 url/branch2/dir1)
- file-to-file (svn merge url/branch1/dir1/afile.txt
url/branch2/dir1/afile.txt)

Merging creates an svn:mergeinfo property on the destination path (branch
root, directory or file) and if this cannot combined/elided with the parent
then the property will be modified on subsequent merges creating changes
without textual differences and making it harder to see what real changes
happened in the merge.

If users merge files directly (which they have about 20-40 times) then those
files will be listed as changed each time we merge.

So, I think I should tell my users to favor merging are a higher level on
the tree.

Does this make sense and what's the right way to clean this up (to manual
elide the mergeinfo to as high a level as they will go?)

thanks for the help

-- 
Peter Kahn
citizenkahn_at_gmail.com
pkahnpie1_at_AIM
http://www.google.com/profiles/citizenkahn
Awareness - Intention - Action
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