Re: [Gnu-arch-users] merge trouble

[Tom Lord]

   From: Robert Anderson <address@hidden>

   I have two branches A and B.   B is a feature branch which is intended
   to fully merge into A.  (The situation is actually much more complex
   than this, but I HOPE this is enough to describe the problem.) [....]


Aside from the already mentioned options:

You could restore discipline to your branches by pretending momentarily
that the changes you cherrypicked into A were independently developed
and just happen to be the same as changes in B.

To make sure we are in sync -- I understand you to have something like
this:

        A revisions:            B revisions:

        [...]
        a-A       ----tag---->  b-K
        [...]                   [...]
        a-B       <----pick---  b-L
        [...]                   [...]
        a-C       <----pick---  b-M
        [...]                   [...]
        a-D                     b-N


Untested, but, won't this do what you want?:

        % tla get A
        % cd A
        % tla remove-log-version B
        % tla commit
        % cd ..
        % tla get B
        % cd B
        % tla star-merge --three-way A
                or
          tla star-merge --forward A

If you don't want to smudge your A archive that way you could do:

        % tla get A
        % cd A
        % tla remove-log-version B
        [set up a temporary archive and switch this tree there]
        % tla commit  # not to A but to A-tmp
        % cd ..
        % tla get B
        % cd B
        % tla star-merge --three-way --reference A A-tmp
                or
          tla star-merge --forward --reference A A-tmp
        [trash the A-tmp logs, if you like]


There are lots of variations.   It would be easier if the FROM
argument to star-merge could still be a project tree rather than
a revision --- that should probably be restored.

You can also merge from A to B using star-merge in segments,
separated by the cherry-pick merge points from B to A, mixed
with sync-trees for those merge points (or if not sync-tree, any
step that will add the A log which records a cherry-pick).

Once the common ancestor between the two branches is past the 
cherry-pick points you'll be back in star-topology territory.


-t