Re: [Gnu-arch-users] history of "forked" files

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Andy Tai <address@hidden>

    > Hi,how can histories of "forked" files be tracked in
    > Arch?  I mean, say I have a file a.c and later I moved
    > a.c to b/a1.c and created a copy that will envolve
    > independently as c/a2.c.  How can I ensure a2.c will
    > have a.c's history as part of its own?  Thanks.

What do you mean by "have a.c's history as part of its own?"

For example, suppose that patch-N predates the creation a1.c and a2.c
and that you 'tla replay --reverse patch-N':  do you want changes to
a.c to be removed from _both_ a1.c and a2.c?

or do you only mean: "If I prepare a report that shows all the changes
ever made to a2.c, it will also show changes to a.c?"

For the former, splitting the project tree into two or three project
trees and unifying them with a config is the only way.   arch is
fairly insistent on a 1:1 mapping from changes to inventory ids.
Replaying in reverse that patch-N to both trees should do the right
thing (though it may complain about having changes for files which are
"missing" in one of the trees you apply it to).

For the latter: I don't think any of the (fairly short list of)
browsers and report generators have a facility for that.   That
history (that a2.c was once a.c) is not information that arch itself
would ever use for anything.   What you _can_ do is add a custom
header to the log message when you make the split and train a report
generator to recognize that.

-t