[cvsnt] Re: BUG when merging and removing files on branches

[Harrison, Andrew]

> From: Kevin [mailto:zzz at zzz.zzz.org]
> 
> Am I missing something in this reasoning?
> 

Hi Kevin,
No, I don't think you are missing anything. This looks very similar to a
problem I had in February. I completely agree with you reasoning and agree
with what you say should happen. The thing is, Tony doesn't, and he's in
charge. I had quite a discussion with him previously about it and it
basically comes down to how 'paranoid' you want the automatic merging to be.
In this case and a few others, CVS-NT is slightly more paranoid than you and
me and so does not delete the file but leave it for the user to sort out. 

Although in your case the branch doesn't have any edits on it, just merges,
CVS doesn't know this without scanning back up all the revisions. So by
deleting the file when you do the merge you are potentially deleting some
changes that were done in that branch.

Imagine this:

 1.9 --------------- branch
  |                    |
  |                  1.9.6.1
  |      merge         |
 1.10 -------------> 1.9.6.2
  |                    |
  |      merge         |
 (1.11) -----------> ??????
  DEAD               

What should happen here? It could be argued that since the latest revision
in the branch is a mergepoint that the edits in 1.9.6.1 can be safely
ignored and the file should be deleted, but it's "safer" to just leave it.

When I started writing this email I agreed with you. Now I've drawn that
diagram I agree with Tony. Hmm, maybe I need some more coffee... ;-)

Andy

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Andy Harrison - Platform Software Engineer 
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