Cross-branch locking

Locking a file only locks it in one place in the repository. If you have a
trunk and a branch version of a non-mergeable (binary, usually) file, it is
still possible for people to make changes to both copies simultaneously and
end up with non-mergeable changes.

Has anyone thought about ways to prevent this from happening?

Some branches result in two versions of the same conceptual file, for
instance if you've got a development trunk and a release branch. Other
branches are divergences that aren't considered to be the same file, for
instance if you branch a file to split it into two parts.

With multiple versions of the "same" file you have the assumption that
changes will be merged from one branch to another. If the file type does
not support merging this operation reduces to copying the changed version to
the other branches.

In the case of the "same" files in different branches, it seems to me as if
you'd want a lock on one to prevent anyone from acquiring locks on the other
versions. Then, if a commit is made on the locked version, the other
branches would be unable to acquire a lock until they had merged (i.e.
copied) the change to their version.

Does this sound logical? Are there deep-seated problems with it? Is this a
potential enhancement for Subversion?
 
James McNeill

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Received on Thu Sep 15 01:54:42 2005