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Re: merging old document trees, many "conflicts"

From: Andy Levy <andy.levy_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2007-09-04 18:42:06 CEST

On 9/4/07, Dan Yost <svn@sola5.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'd hate to ask a repeat question--I don't see one quite like this but
> please refer me if you know of a good thread.
>
> I am deploying Subversion for source code versioning and collaboration. It
> is simply outstanding. We use it on our Linux development boxes.
>
> So outstanding, in fact, that now I want to implement it to control
> virtually ALL of my documents, even from Windoze.
>
> What I want to do is to place "My Documents" (let's just use that as a
> simple reference point) under Subversion control, for my PC.
>
> That is very easy.
>
> But, I also want to put "My Documents" on my laptop under Subversion
> control.
>
> The problem is that My Documents here, and My Documents there, contain
> many, many common subdirectories, files, junk, and so forth. This is
> because, at random times and for random reasons, some folder here may have
> been tarred up and scp'd over there, vice versa, and so on, over many
> years, only "when needed." Very helter skelter, as you might expect.
>
> But now that I can rule the world with Subversion, I want to have ONE big
> repository that can then be used, with one simple command, to synchronize
> (as well as version) back-and-forth between my laptop and PC. I love it!
>
> So my challenge is how to "merge" these two big My Documents directories
> together initially, though I hesitate to use the word "merge" because of
> its obvious Subversion merge subcommand connotation. Maybe a merge IS part
> of the solution, or maybe not.
>
> Both machines may have files that the other machine now needs, to get
> started, maybe named the same, common subdirs, etc. I'm having some kind
> of mental block on the best way to "merge" these two initially.
>
> I could create two separate repositories or branches within one repository
> (e.g. a Machine A branch and Machine B), and somehow try to bring them
> together and detect conflicts one by one (yikes) or something. Many of the
> documents--in fact, almost all of them--are binary (OpenOffice docs,
> images, zip files, whatever), by the way.
>
> Do any of you experts have a suggestion for how to do this elegantly? I'd
> sure think it to be a fairly common problem once folks get Subversion
> fever and want to start truly using it "for everything" after years of
> tossing files around between machines. What would you do?

Why not (manually) get your 2 instances of My Documents in sync
*outside* the realm of Subversion first, then import it all into your
repository? It seems like you're opening yourself up for errors &
introducing a layer of complexity that you just don't need by trying
to to do the initial synchronization via Subversion.

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Received on Tue Sep 4 18:39:19 2007

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