Re: Auto-selection of merge source URL

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, C. Michael Pilato wrote:

> Vlad Georgescu wrote:
> > David Glasser wrote:
> >> How bad of an idea is making "svn merge" with reverse ranges default
> >> to the target and with forward ranges default to the other branch?
> >
> > +1. That would minimize the number of URLs you need to type.
 
I favor this, assuming we can work out any UI kinks. +1

> Here again, though:
>
> $ svn merge -c -SOME_REV
>
> Oh! Shoot! Better undo that:
>
> $ svn merge -c SOME_REV
>
> Uh...

In this model, where forward and reverse merges have different behavior,
the second 'svn merge' to do a rollback is inappropriate. If you hadn't
performed a commit of the previous merge, you'd use 'svn revert'. If you
had performed a commit which, say, created NEW_REV, you'd do:

     $ svn merge -c -NEW_REV

...which would rollback the reverse merge and mergeinfo changes of SOME_REV
from the WC's branch.

Alternately, you could use:

     $ svn merge -c SOME_REV SOME_REV_SOURCE_URL

While I agree with Mike that the UI offers some potential for confusion,
this model would be at least deterministic, meaning the users who don't
read the documentation (read: everyone) would at least be able to learn the
sub-command flavor's behavior. This is a reasonable trade-off because it
better matches the typical user usage model.

-- 
Daniel Rall