[Monotone-devel] Re: Merge frustration

[Bruce Stephens]

Nathaniel Smith <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

> I am not sure how you envision getting (1) and (2) simultaneously with
> (3), though.  If we are not using the workspace to hold merge state,
> then where could we store the "work [you] have done up to that point"?

Presumably you'd have to commit it to the database.  You could commit
a revision on a special branch, net.venge.monotone.broken-merge, or
something.  I guess you'd commit files with unresolved conflicts with
something like the usual CVSish markers, and give them a "conflict"
attribute.  Or something.  Maybe just on the same branch, but with a
special "I'm broken" cert that would stop people from getting it
accidentally.  (Which might be useful generally.)  Then people could
explicitly update to that revision and resolve the conflicts one at a
time in the obvious way, and when the final conflict attribute goes,
that revision wouldn't have the "I'm broken cert" (or you'd try to
propagate it back to the main branch).

> And how can we present you with "all files at once" any more cleanly
> than by writing them all out to a directory tree, and letting you use
> your standard tools?

At least some merge tools can handle sets of files.  ediff can, for
example.  I suspect it wants the files on disk, though, but then you
need that anyway, I guess.

[...]