[Svnmerge] Automating merge tracking initialization

[Paul Walmsley]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Rohan Joseph <rohanjoseph at gmail.com> wrote:

>              I am a relatively new user to svnmerge.py and I am currently
> attempting to automate the process of initializing merge tracking on any
> directory. I have been reading through some threads and there seems to be an
> agreed-upon notion that the best time to start merge tracking is when a
> branch is just created (pristine, no local modifications). Is there a way to
> automatically run 'svnmerge.py init BRANCH_URL' the moment the branch is
> created?
>   

Presumably, automatic initialisation of merge tracking is undesirable in 
the general case?  You can initialise merge tracking between any pair of 
branches, so every time you create a branch, the initialisation data 
would be created for every existing branch, which would have a 
significant overhead.  I think it would be useful to have merge tracking 
automatically initialised between the new branch and its parent, as this 
is the most common use case,  but then you have an inconsistency where 
you have to initialise merge tracking for some pairs of branches but not 
for others.

On balance, the current situation is probably the best compromise.

In relation to your original point about the best time to initialise 
merge tracking I think you might be getting two different issues mixed 
up.   The 'pristine, no local modifications' thing means that you should 
ensure you have a clean checkout of your new branch with no local 
changes.  However, I don't think it is at all necessary to do this as 
soon as you create the new branch.  You can initialise the merge 
tracking at any point in time later -- even just before you finally 
merge the branch back to its parent.  It'Pauls good practice to get into 
the habit of doing it early, but it isn't really necessary. 

So I wouldn't worry about automatic initialisation of merge tracking.