Re: Subversion Merge

Ram, Chrishneel N wrote:
> I have a question regarding merging files. If I have file1 and file2,
> can I merge file1 and file2 into file3?

Hmm... What does that mean? Merging in the common case implies that
there is a common ancestor at the base.

   --> A1 ----> A2
        \
           B1 ---> B2

The branch from A1 to B1 creates a parallel development branch. A1
and B1 are identical here. In this example changes are made on both
brances to create a new version A2 based upon A1 and a new version B2
based upon B1. Now we want to merge the changes made between B1 and
B2 onto the main A trunk.

   --> A1 ----> A2 ----> A3 --->
        \ /
           B1 ---> B2

Effectively that is done by taking a diff from B1 to B2 and using that
to patch A2. Stylized like this (not a real command).

  diff -u B1 B2 | patch A2 > A3

In this case three files are involved creating a fourth. But that is
not the same as saying merging file1 and file2 into file3. I hope this
makes it clear.

> Can subversion tell me later on that file3 was originated from the
> product of file1 and file2?

No. Subversion does not do any merge tracking. That is a high want
feature and has generated a lot of discussion. For now you must log
the merge manually into the log message. See the documentation here
for details of doing this.

  http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.branchmerge.copychanges.html#svn.branchmerge.copychanges.bestprac.track
  http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.branchmerge.commonuses.html#svn.branchmerge.commonuses.wholebr

Bob

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Received on Thu Jul 27 06:49:24 2006