I am resending the initial mail as the mail format other than text is not
supported.
I feel that the SVN branching and merging/integration algorithm is
flawed. However I am not sure if this is a known limitation of SVN. I
did 2 tests to compare SVN against Perforce/git. The intention of the test
is to see if a change done by a user at some point in time and taken to
multiple branches comes back to the main branch duplicated multiple
times without indicating a conflict.
Please look into the attached tests.txt. Each column shows the contents of a
file as we
do successive changes to the file. Also please refer below the explanatory
steps.
I use tortoisesvn 1.7.5 as the user interface and hence I can just list
the menu commands corresponding to each step and not the exact SVN
commands (I am not used to the command line). The following are the
steps I executed for Test 1.
(1) Create a file myfile.txt with following contents and add it to the
repository (TortoiseSVN -> Add, SVN Commit).
a
b
c
z
(2) Branch the file myfile.txt to a new location (TortoiseSVN -> Branch/Tag
(From:myfile.txt To:branch1/myfile.txt), SVN update). Now the contents
of branch1/myfile.txt is
a
b
c
z
(3) Edit the branch1/myfile.txt by inserting a line 'd' as follows and then
commit the changes (SVN Commit). Now the contents of branch1/myfile.txt is
a
b
c
d
z
(4) Now branch the file branch1/myfile.txt to branch2/myfile.txt (TortoiseSVN
-> Branch/Tag (From:branch1/myfile.txt To:branch2/myfile.txt), SVN update). Now
the contents of branch2/myfile.txt is
a
b
c
d
z
(5) Now edit the file branch2/myfile.txt by changing the 'c' to 'x' and
then commit the changes (SVN commit). Now the contents of branch2/myfile.txt is
a
b
x
d
z
(6) Now integrate the branch1/myfile.txt back to myfile.txt (TortoiseSVN
-> Merge (Reintegrate a branch From:branch1/myfile.txt To working
copy:myfile.txt), SVN commit). Now the contents of myfile.txt is
a
b
c
d
z
(7) Now integrate the branch2/myfile.txt back to myfile.txt (TortoiseSVN ->
Merge (Reintegrate a branch From:branch2/myfile.txt To working
copy:myfile.txt), SVN commit). Now the contents of myfile.txt is
a
b
x
d
d
z
You can see that the line 'd' appears twice in the integrated file. 'd' is
inserted only once in the revision history. The expected output
(verified in perforce and git) is
a
b
x
d
z
------------------------
The second test shown in the attached tests.txt is similar, but shows
another clear problem of the line 'd' appearing twice in the integrated
file.
Upto step 4, it is same as for test 1
(5) Edit branch2/myfile.txt and delete 'b' and 'c' and then commit changes
a
dz
(6) Edit branch2/myfile.txt and add 'b' and 'c' below 'd' and then commit
changes
a
d
b
c
z
(7) Reintegrate branch1/myfile.txt to myfile.txt
a
b
c
d
z
(8) Reintegrate branch2/myfile.txt to myfile.txt. The final integrated file is
shown below.
a
d
b
c
d
z
The expected output for the second test as verified in perforce and git is
a
d
b
c
z
Hope now it clarifies the problem.
----- Original Message -----
From: Stefan Sperling <s...@elego.de>
To: Arunmozhi <arunmozh...@yahoo.com>
Cc: "users@subversion.apache.org" <users@subversion.apache.org>
Sent: Friday, 27 July 2012 7:06 PM
Subject: Re: Issue with merge/integration algorithm?
On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 06:11:34AM -0700, Arunmozhi wrote:
>
>
> I feel that the SVN branching and merging/integration algorithm is
> flawed. However I am not sure if this is a known limitation of SVN. I
> did 2 tests to compare SVN against Perforce/git. The intention of the test
> is to see if a change done by a user at some point in time and taken to
> multiple branches comes back to the main branch duplicated multiple
> times without indicating a conflict.
I'm afraid it's hard to help you based on the information you've given.
You're not showing any svn commands you're running.
You're not showing the results you got from svn.
Without that information it's impossible to tell what you were
really doing.
Test 1:
-------
Integrate B1 back to main
+---------------+
| V
Main -> Branch1 -> Branch2 Main Main
a a a a a a a
b b b b b b b
c c c c x c x
z z d d d d d
z z z z d
| z
| ^
+---------+
Integrate B2 back to main
In Perforce the result is (without conflict)
a
b
x
d
z
Test 2:
-------
Integrate B1 back to main
+----------------+
| V
Main -> Branch1 -> Branch2 Main Main
a a a a a a a a
b b b b d d b d
c c c c z b c b
z z d d c d c
z z z z d
| z
| ^
+---------+
Integrate B2 back to main
In Perforce the result is (without conflict)
a
d
b
c
z
