Correct way of doing merge in a complex repository?

Hi,

In the FreeBSD project, we use "vendor branch" and merge changes that
happen there to trunk. The FreeBSD project's repository can be accessed at
svn://svn.freebsd.org/base or via web at http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base .

Now I'm facing a problem with the merging approach and would like to know
if there is a good solution to this. Long story short, I have done a
series of 'svn mv' before applying new vendor code into vendor branch so
can maintain file's history (commit message can be seen at [1]).

When merging that changeset to ^/head/contrib/file, I got a lot of
conflicts, complaining on local modification vs incoming delete.

Is there a way to keep the file history when doing the merge? The
repository was converted from CVS where we do heavy repo-copies to maintain
that.

(One way I can think about is to repeat the 'svn mv's in the target
directory, then apply the merged version against it, then do a 'svn merge
--record-only ^/vendor/file/5.11 ^/vendor/file/dist/ .' in
head/contrib/file, but I'm afraid of losing the "copy" relationship on
files added during my import).

Thanks in advance!

[1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-vendor/2014-June/001860.html

-- 
Xin LI <delphij@delphij.net> https://www.delphij.net/
FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! Live free or die