[Gnu-arch-users] branch accounting/status tool

[Robert Anderson]

I think a branch accounting tool that does the following would be
useful:

You specify a version, and it recursively goes through all of
your archives, and finds all versions which were branched from
it.  For each branch, it figures out if:

1) There are missing patches from the parent
2) There are un-merged patches in the child
3) In each case 1&2, if a star-merge will result in conflicts in
either direction

It would give a summary listing that looks something like this:

proj--main--0

<- -> proj--user--0 (missing and unmerged patches, no conflicts)
<C    proj--user2--0 (unmerged patches which cause conflicts)
   C> proj--blah1--0 (missing patches which conflict)
      proj--fixit--0 (fully up-to-date branch)
        -> proj--fixit-a--0
      <C   proj--fixit-b--0
<-    proj--whoops--0

etc.  You can quibble about the presentation, but I think the
basic idea is a good one.

I never really looked into sealed versions, but maybe that's the
way to handle branches that you want to consider "closed," which
would only get listed with an option.

The ease with which branches can be made also carries with it
significant responsibility in keeping them all straight,
up-to-date, and dealing with potential conflicts sooner rather
than later when it can get out of hand.  Going through this
manually is a real chore.  A one-step command for "here is your
branch hierarchy, here is the general status of what is up to
date with what, and here are the places where you're already
looking at conflicts, so you better get a handle on those right
away" seems like a must-have.

Bob