Re: branching / cvs question

[Larry Jones]

LN Cisneros writes [in very long lines -- please teach your mail program
to wrap your outgoing messages at a reasonable line length]:
> 
> A specific question I have is in regards to a file I've grabbed from
> the XFREE86 source (included below).
[...]
> 1) There is an xf-3_2A-branch and a xf-3_3-branch.  The both seem to
> be branched from the 1.1.1.1 version of the X11R6 branch.  Why do they
> both have their changes versioned the exact same, i.e. they both have a
> "magic" branch number of 1.1.1.1.0.4?  Shouldn't one of them be
> 1.1.1.1.0.6?

Not necessarily.  Branches and branch tags are, in fact, independent. 
You can have one without the other.  In this particular case, there are
two different branch *tags*, but only one *branch*; the tags are just
aliases for each other.

> 2)  Is the XF11R6 a vendor branch?

I don't see any branch with that name.  Did you mean X11R6?  It is a tag
for the vendor branch.  CVS really only supports a single vendor branch:
1.1.1.

> 3)  What do all those "symbols" mean?  How do you tell if they are a
> branch name or not? Will a branch always point to a "magic" branch
> number?

A branch tag that was created by CVS always points to a magic branch
number.  Branch tags that were created by RCS do not, but they will have
an odd number of components (e.g., 1.3.1) rather than an even number.  

> 3)  If changes are merged from a branch back into main, do cvs track this?

No.

-Larry Jones

...That would be pretty cool, if they weren't out to kill me. -- Calvin