Re: Maintaining branches...

[Mark]

I have been watching this thread with some interest.

Modifying CVS to record (with intergity) and use recorded merge
information might require much code work in cvs. (Not to say that
it wouldn't be great to have the functionality, or that I have ever
seriously looked at the source). Whether it can be done with RCS
new phases or something similar to editors/watchers (the
"permanent") location), there would be things commands would need
to do.

First, it might be necessary to store merge info temporarily in the
working CVS subdirectory first, then promote the files' merge info
to the "permanent" location on commit of the files.

cvs co command:
    * without options, would have to check to make sure locally
stored merge info for a file being checked out doesn't exist, if it
does (a unix rm on the working file has been perform and is being
replaced) it should discard the merge info for that file.
    * -j would have to record merge info locally

cvs update command:
    * -A would have to check for locally stored merge info for the
file and remove it before updating
    * without options, same as co without options
    * without options, cvs update on a merged working copy needs to
update the merge info in the working dir's CVS subdirectory for the
file.
    * -j would have to record merge info locally, also would have
to deal with multiple -j calls on the same file.

cvs commit command:
    * this should move merge info from the working dir CVS
subdirectory to the permanent location (RCSfile, CVS subdir in
repository) and clear the local merge info in the CVS subdir.

The above might be mandatory for a first release to track merges, I
am sure there are more changes that might be needed.

Then there's the changes to commands to use the merge information.
Commands like:

cvs status command:
cvs log command:
cvs history command:

Maybe new commands:

cvs findmerge -r<branch tag>

I don't know what it would take to at least get cvs track merging
in a robust way. This is all some thoughts I'd wanted to share.

Mark

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