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Does svn merge "clean up" the svn:mergeinfo?

From: Rob Hubbard <rob.hubbard_at_softel.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:59:53 +0100

Hello,
 
I have noticed some odd behaviour with the svn:mergeinfo property. This
behaviour does not appear to be wrong as such, but is unexpected.
 
We are currently using the following SVN clients
    SVN 1.6.5
    TortoiseSVN 1.6.5 (build against SVN 1.6.5)
with a
    SVN 1.6.4
server. I'm not certain whether the repositories themselves have been
svnadmin upgraded or dump/loaded.
 
Previously we had been using other 1.3.x through older 1.6.x clients.
 
The odd behaviour occurred as follows:
I checked out the trunk of a project.
I "cherry picked" a revision to merge from a branch; in that branch
revision, only a single file had been modified.
That merge was executed at the "root" of the project, as is recommended.
 
Following the merge, many files were showing a modification to their
properties. (I tried this with both TortoiseSVN and the command-line
client; the result was the same in each case.)
 
An svn diff showed that all that had happened was that many
svn:mergeinfo properties had been deleted. (Their old values were
empty.)
 
The other changes were as expected:
There was a textual change on the file affected by the merge.
The branch and revision information had been added to the root
directory's svn:mergeinfo property.
 
The history of the project was quite complex, but it appears that these
empty svn:mergeinfo properties were created during file copy operations,
quite some time ago, and presumably with older SVN or T-SVN clients.
 
So the questions I have are:
 
Is what I'm seeing the result of a "tidying up" operation by SVN merge
(perhaps in preparation for a reintegration operation)?
Does this only affect empty svn:mergeinfo properties, or can non-trivial
ones also become deleted?
Are these empty svn:mergeinfo properties the result of a bug in an old
client, and has it been fixed?
 
One unpleasant outcome of committing a merge like this is that many
files which have not really been modified (except trivially in their
properties) will appear in the log to be modified, and a log does not
distinguish textual modifications with property modifications.
 
Many thanks,
Rob.
 

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Received on 2009-09-10 19:00:49 CEST

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