Re: auto branch propagation

[Jim Hyslop]

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Kesavan T.S wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> Thanks a lot for your response.I would really appreciate any tips for
> writing a script for auto propagation of a fix in prod level branch to
> future releases. When ever a commit is made I want to look up upstream
> branches for these files  and in a temp directory do a update -j  if the
> merge is successful commit it on the branch otherwise lookup users email
> and send a notification for merge.

I think this is a bad idea. Just because a merge does not produce
conflicts does *not* mean that the merge was successful. I have seen,
for example, a new function added to source code on both the branch and
the trunk. For various reasons, the new function was not merged, but
copied-and-pasted from the branch to the trunk. Unfortunately, in the
branch the function appeared at the beginning of the file, and on the
trunk, it appeared at the end of the file. CVS merged the files without
complaint, but compiling it (it was C++, not Java) produced errors.

This is only one small example of the kind of thing that can go wrong
with a merge, which CVS cannot detect.

- --
Jim Hyslop
Dreampossible: Better software. Simply.     http://www.dreampossible.ca
                 Consulting * Mentoring * Training in
    C/C++ * OOD * SW Development & Practices * Version Management
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