Re: importing vendor branches

[Fergus Henderson]

On 03-May-2001, Greg A. Woods <address@hidden> wrote:
> [ On Thursday, May 3, 2001 at 16:58:14 (+0300), Nils Jakobson wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: importing vendor branches
> >
> > 
> > I've also encountered this problem, as far as I've verified it looks like 
> > this:
> > when I do unconditional checkout, it always does get the latest revision no
> > matter from which branch (like 1.1.1.1 right after import). When I update
> > it updates the main trunk since it _stays_ there by default (?) but which
> > is not true for branching (and tagging) - it will branch the line from 
> > which it
> > has the latest revision! So, before branching, perform conditional checkout
> > where branch/tag is specified.
> 
> RTFM:  "Tracking third-party sources."

Well, I've RTFM, and I'm glad that the behaviour is documented:

 |    For files that have not been modified locally, the newly created
 |    revision becomes the head revision.  If you have made local changes,
 |    `import' will warn you that you must merge the changes into the main
 |    trunk, and tell you to use `checkout -j' to do so.

But nevertheless, this behaviour is BAD - Broken As Designed.
Any command whose default behaviour leaves the main branch of the
repository in an inconsistent state is a problem waiting to happen.

The fact that the documentation describes this behaviour merely confirms
that it is design bug rather than just a coding bug.

The current documentation is NOT explicit enough in pointing out that
the repository will be in an inconsistent state during the time in between
the import and the merge.  It should warn users of this problem.

(Even better, of course, would be to fix it.)

> > I dont know how to get rid of the 1.1.1.1 (by patching a client?), it
> > makes all the things go wrong from very beginning (if you dont know
> > about this feature).
> 
> I published a patch long ago that would allow you to "import" to the
> trunk,

That's not what I want to do; I want to import on a branch.
But I want importing on a branch to only affect the branch,
not to break the main line.  Currently importing on a branch
breaks the main line.

> In real life I only ever use "cvs import" for third-party code that I
> want to track using the CVS vendor branch support.

That's the main time I use "cvs import" too.  The trouble is that it doesn't
work properly.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <address@hidden>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
                                    |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.