I guess I should have read the next response in the thread before replying...
On Feb 24, 2013, at 7:52 AM, Stefan Sperling <s...@elego.de> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 12:14:04PM +0000, Andreas Tscharner wrote: >>> So what is the proper way to continuously perform the workflow we're >>> trying to do - that is pull changes from origin path into branch, push >>> changes to origin branch from branch, and repeat. >>> >>> Using bidirectional merge (without reintegrate) seems create severe >>> merge conflicts. >> >> Short answer: There is none (with SVN) > > Sorry, not true :) Bidirectional merge is possible with SVN. > > Subversion 1.8 will ship with an enhanced 'automatic' merge that > will make this very easy to do, see > http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#auto-merge > > But it is also possible with 1.7 -- it's just not widely documented > because the trick for doing it was discovered fairly recently during > 1.8 development, while the "automatic merge" feature was being developed. > > Quoting Julian Foad in http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2012-05/0474.shtml > > * To merge again in the same direction as the previous merge > => the existing "sync" merge will work. > > * To merge again in the opposite direction to the previous merge > => the existing "reintegrate" merge will work. > > So whenever switching directions use --reintegrate, and then keep using > plain 'svn merge' until you change directions again. > See the rest of Julian's post for details. > > If you want to merge in this fashion, you should avoid subtree merges > (e.g. merging ^/trunk/foo to ^/branches/branch/foo), but always merge all > changes from the source branch (e.g. from ^/trunk to ^/branches/branch). > > You should also avoid cherry-picking merges, i.e. never specify a > particular revision range to be merged, instead relying on merge-tracking > to merge all outstanding changes. > > Note that both of the above restrictions exist in DVCS by design. So if you > are already considering DVCS as an alternative these restrictions should > not be an issue. > > Please let us know if this approach works well for you. > >> Long(er) answer: We were seeing the same problems here with a similar >> workflow. We ended up with some rules that actually changed the desired >> workflow (no merges from trunk to feature branch during development) and >> caused other problems (big changes when reintegrating the feature branch >> back to trunk). >> At the moment we are evaluating a DVCS (Mercurial in our case) which pretty >> much solves these problems (we have others of course) >> >> If I had to guess by the words you use (pull, push), I'd say you have >> already used a DVCS, right? >> >> Our evaluation lasts until the 7th of March, so I cannot say what our >> results are, but I think a DVCS is worth a try. >> >> Best regards >> WENZEL Metromec AG >> Andreas Tscharner >> -- >> Andreas Tscharner, Development >> WENZEL Metromec AG, Rheinfelsstrasse 1, CH-7007 Chur, Switzerland >> phone: +41 (0)81 257 07 00 >> fax: +41 (0)81 257 07 01 >> e-mail: mailto:andreas.tschar...@metromec.ch >> www: http://www.metromec.ch
