Merging Branch and Trunk several times

[Ralf Beckers]

Ahoi,

We need to develop on the trunk, where all general improvements and 
bugfixes are done (not release specific bugfixes!).
We also develop new features in new branches, till they are stable.
Sometimes, it is neccessary to merge bugfixes from the trunk to the branch. 
Sometimes, there will be a merge from the branch to the trunk.
To avoid conflicts, we use update with 2 times -j to get just the changes 
and not the merges (the "own" code back). Therefore we set 2 tags
(premerge and merge), for better access.

(sorry, this ascii art needs a non proportional font)
--- time --->

          branch +-------------(A1)-(T2)--+----------------(A5)-(T5)-(A6)
                 | code changes           *        code changes       ^
                 | plus conflict          *                          /*\
- root-of-brnch -+                        *                           *
                 |                       \*/                          * 
                 | code changes           V        code changes       *
          trunk  +-------------(A2)-(T1)-(A3)-(T3)----------(A4)-(T4)-+ 


T1 = cvs tag premerge-brnch_1
T2 = cvs tag branch-brnch_1
A1 = cvs commit
A2 = cvs commit
A3 = cvs update -j root-of-brnch -j branch-brnch_1
     emacs to solve conflict.
     cvs commit
T3 = cvs tag merged-brnch_1
A4 = cvs commit
T4 = cvs tag trunk_bugfix_1
T5 = cvs tag premerge_bugfix_1
A5 = cvs commit
A6 = cvs update -j root-of-brnch -j premerge-brnch_1
     cvs update -j merged-brnch_1 -j trunk_bugfix_1
       -> conflict (again)...

When I fix the conflict the second time in the branch,  CVS won't tell me in 
further merges, that the solution is different.

Does someone has another way of using cvs for this special (?) case?
How can I ensure, that the conflict is solved the same way?

Thanks in advance,
Ralf
-- 
Ralf Beckers, OFFIS
R&D Division Embedded Systems
Escherweg 2 - 26121 Oldenburg - Germany
Fon: +49 441 9722 234  -  Fax: +49 441 9722 282
E-Mail: address@hidden  -  URL: http://www.lowpower.de