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<title>Merge Tracking Functional Specification</title>
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<div class="h1">
<h1>Merge Tracking Functional Specification</h1>
<p><a href="index.html">Merge tracking</a> functional specification.
Describes Subversion 1.5.0, except where noted as
<i>unimplemented</i>. This is a living specification, which will
change as features are added or refined.</p>
<div class="h2" id="merge">
<h2>Merge operations</h2>
<p>Merge operations involving a single source URL (e.g. <code>svn
merge -cN URL</code>) allow the revision range and source URL
parameters to be optional. The revision range defaults to "all
unmerged revisions", while the source URL is inferred using a
combination of merge info and copy history. When a revision range is
not provided, merge operations are not able to "revert" changes
(e.g. a la <code>svn merge -c -7 URL</code>).</p>
<p>See the <a href="#repeated-merge">repeated merge</a> section below
for discussion of various merge algorithms, and details on the merge
algorithm used.</p>
<p>Merge info is <em>not taken into consideration for three-way
merges</em>, merge operations which do not specify identical "from"
and "to" URLs (e.g. <code>svn merge FROM_URL@REV1 TO_URL@REV2</code>).
In the future, Subversion will likely support this, but currently
lacks sufficient history and merge info between the repository and
client to perform this operation in a reasonable manner. The primary
use case this will impact is vendor branches.</p>
</div> <!-- merge -->
<div class="h2" id="diff-status">
<h2>Diff/Status operations</h2>
<p>Output is shown the same as pre-Merge Tracking, except for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Diffs pretty-print changes to merge info in an easily
human-readable form.</li>
<li>Diffs sometimes report spurious property changes from merge info
(bug?).</li>
<li>Status represents changes to the merge info for the root of a
tree as a property change.</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- diff-status -->
<div class="h2" id="copy-move">
<h2>Copy/Move operations</h2>
<p>Copy and move operations handle two types of merge info:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Explicit</dt>
<dd>The pre-existing value of the <code>svn:mergeinfo</code>
property on the source path.</dd>
<dt>Implicit</dt>
<dd>All revisions represented by the object at the source path (from
its "appeared in" revision to its current revision).</dd>
</dl>
<div class="h3" id="ra-copy-move">
<h3>Repository Access operation</h3>
<p>Copy/move operations which contact the repository include:</p>
<ul>
<li>WC to URL</li>
<li>URL to WC</li>
<li>URL to URL</li>
</ul>
<p>These operations always propagate both explicit and implicit merge
info. Other than the inclusion of merge info, operation is
effectively the same as pre-Merge Tracking.</p>
</div> <!-- ra-copy-move -->
<div class="h3" id="wc-wc-copy-move">
<h3>Working Copy to Working Copy operation</h3>
<p>Pre-Merge Tracking, WC to WC operations occurred offline (e.g. with
no repository access). This is a typical behavior of refactoring
tools (e.g. IDEs like Eclipse), and is very useful when offline
(e.g. on an airplane or subway, or at a cafe).</p>
<p>However, to propagate merge info during copy/move operations,
access to both a path's comprehensive merge info and its history is
necessary. To preserve offline operation, the Merge Tracking
implementation supports two modes:</p>
<ul>
<li>A compatibility mode, which neither contacts the repository, nor
does any merge info propagation (unless a copy source's merge info
has been locally modified, in which its value is propagated the as
any Subversion revision property). This is the default mode of
operation.</li>
<li>A mode which requires repository access (e.g. isn't offline),
but which propagates all merge info from source path to
destination. This mode is activated via the
<code>--use-merge-history</code> option.</li>
</ul>
<p>This behavior is comparable to the difference between <code>svn
status</code> and <code>svn status -u</code>.</p>
<p>While some state indicating delayed merge info retrieval and
handling could instead be stored in WC to preserve offline operation,
there are complications with this when subsequent uncommitted revert
operations should change the merge info (we'd have to store negative
merge info in the WC).</p>
</div> <!-- wc-wc-copy-move -->
</div> <!-- copy-move -->
<div class="h2" id="sparse-checkouts">
<h2>Sparse Checkouts</h2>
<p>When merging to a WC with sparsely populated directories, non-inheritable
mergeinfo for the merge is set on the deepest directories present.</p>
<ul>
<li>Directories with depth == empty: The directory gets non-inheritable
mergeinfo.</li>
<li>Directories with depth == files: The directory gets non-inheritable
mergeinfo. Any child files present get inheritable mergeinfo (not to imply
files ever have anything but inheritable mergeinfo, they shouldn't!).</li>
<li>Directories with depth == imediates: The directory and any child files
present get inheritable mergeinfo. And directory children present get
non-inheritable mergeinfo.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Rationale</h3>
<p><em>[JAF] The above may be the actual behaviour but sounds too simplistic
to be the desired behaviour. Although a simple depth attribute is
recorded for each dir in the WC, the ambient depth of a dir in the WC is
not simply one of empty/files/immediates/infinity, but rather is a tree in
which different branches are populated to different depths. Surely the
merge ought to respond to the ambient depth rather than the simple depth
attribute.</em></p>
<p><em>[JAF] It's not clear whether an incoming addition should be honoured
if the added node would fall outside the ambient depth. The sparse-
directories design doesn't seem to address this case for updates, let
alone merges. It would be silly if a merge could delete such a node (that
was present in the WC despite being outside its parent's 'depth'
attribute) and could not then re-add a node of the same name in order to
perform both halves of an incoming replacement. <a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4164" >Issue
#4164 "inconsistencies in merge handling of adds vs. edits in shallow
targets"</a> is related.</em></p>
<p>See <a href="../sparse-directories.txt">sparse-directories design</a>.</p>
</div> <!-- sparse-checkouts -->
<div class="h2" id="switched-paths">
<h2>Switched Paths</h2>
<p>Switched paths are treated as the root of a working copy regarding
mergeinfo inheritance, recording, and elision. Specifically, for a
merge target with an arbitrary switched subtree:</p>
<pre>
WC-Root
|
Target
|
SSP
| \
| \
SS SSS
Target - The WC target of the merge operation (may be same as WC-Root)
SSP - Switched Subtree Parent (may be same as Target)
SSPS - Switched Subtree Sibling (zero or more)
SS - Switched Subtree</pre>
<p>Note: If SS is itself the target of the merge, then the no special
handling is needed, the merge takes place as if SS is the root of the WC.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Inheritance:</strong> If SS has no explicit mergeinfo of its
own, it inherits mergeinfo not from its WC parent (SSP) but from its
repository parent:</li>
<pre>
WC-Root
|
Target
|
V
SSP
SSRP.. | \
\ | \
V x V
SS SSS
SSRP - Switched subtree's repository parent
--> Mergeinfo inheritance
--x No mergeinfo inheritance</pre>
<li><strong>Recording a Merge:</strong> If we merge revision N from ^/SRC,
mergeinfo is recorded like so (note that mergeinfo source '/SRC' is not
literal for children of 'Target' but would be adjusted for the path-wise
differences between the root of the merge target and the subtree in
question):</li>
<pre>
WC-Root
|
Target ('/SRC:N')
|
SSP('/SRC:N*')
| \
| \
| SSS('/SRC:N')
|
SS('/SRC:N' and possibly the mergeinfo
inherited from SSRP if SS
had no pre-existing explicit
mergeinfo)</pre>
<li><strong>Elision:</strong> Mergeinfo on switched paths never elides to
its working copy parents:</li>
<pre>
WC-Root
^
|
Target
^
|
SSP
x ^
| \
| \
SS SSS
--> Mergeinfo elision possible
--x No mergeinfo elision possible</pre>
</ul>
<h3>Delete</h3>
<p><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4163"
>Issue #4163 "merged deletion of switched subtrees records non-inheritable
mergeinfo"</a>: If a merge deletes the path SS, the desired behaviour
is currently undefined and the actual behaviour is that a commit will
delete <strong>both</strong> SS (from SSRP) and SS@BASE (from SSP).</p>
<h3>Rationale</h3>
<p>Why does merging work this way with switched subtrees?</p>
<p>If a subtree (SS) is switched, that means the user has chosen for
the time being to work with a substitute for the original subtree
(SS@BASE), knowing that any modifications made in SS can be
committed only to the repository location of SS and the original
subtree SS@BASE remains hidden and unaffected.</p>
<p>The general semantics of a merge is to apply local modifications
to the working copy and record the merge as having been applied
to the tree that is represented by the working copy.</p>
<p>Merge tracking should ensure that the subtree of the merge that
goes into SS is recorded as being applied to SS, while the
subtree SS@BASE should be recorded as not having received that
merge.</p>
<p>Since the working copy represents parts of two different branches,
two parts of the merge are thus applied to the two different
branches, and recorded as such when the user commits the result.</p>
<p>If the user is doing a merge that may affect SS, it is reasonable
to assume that SS is an alternative variant of SS@BASE rather than
some totally unrelated item. So, in terms of Subversion's loose
branching semantics, SS is a 'branch' of SS@BASE. If the user
chooses to merge when the assumption is false and SS doesn't have
a sensible branching relationship with SS@BASE, the result will be
nonsensical or, in concrete terms, there will be merge conflicts.</p>
<p>Note: Many typical branching policies would forbid committing to
two branches at once, let alone committing merges to two branches
at once. However, the user may have reasons for doing this merge
without intending to commit the result as-is.</p>
</div> <!-- switched-paths -->
<div class="h2" id="prop-change">
<h2>Property change operations</h2>
<p>Property changes from <code>propedit</code>, <code>propset</code>,
and <code>propdel</code> operations can be used to change merge info.
However, as these operations do not attempt to address merge info
inheritance, changes to merge info on a directory affects merge info
on any child paths.</p>
</div> <!-- prop-change -->
<div class="h2" id="mergeinfo-elision">
<h2>Merge Info Elision</h2>
<p>Merge info set on a working copy "child" path as a result of a merge,
switch, or update, may fully/partially elide to the path's nearest working
copy or repository ancestor with fully/partially equivalent merge info.
Elision is attempted as part of any merge/switch/update:</p>
<div class="h3" id="full-elision">
<h3>Full Elision</h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Simple Equivalency</b>: The merge info on a child path and the merge
info on its nearest ancestor both map the same set of source paths to the
same revision ranges. The "same" source path is taken to mean that the only
differences between the two are relative path differences which are exactly
the same as the relative path differences between the child and the ancestor,
e.g.:<pre>
Properties on '/A_COPY_2':
svn:mergeinfo : /A:4-9
/A_COPY:3
Properties on '/A_COPY_2/B/E':
svn:mergeinfo : /A/B/E:4-9
/A_COPY/B/E:3</pre>
The merge info on 'A_COPY_2/B/E' elides to 'A_COPY_2' because the only
differences between the merge source paths on each is 'B/E' which is the same
as the relative path difference between 'A_COPY_2/B/E' and 'A_COPY_2'.
</li>
</ul>
<ul><li><b>Semantic Equivalency</b>: Excepting paths <i>unique</i> to the child
or ancestor which map to empty revision ranges, the merge info between the
child and ancestor is otherwise equivalent per the definition of simple
equivalency, e.g.:<pre>
Properties on '/A_COPY_2':
svn:mergeinfo : /A:4-9
/A_COPY:
Properties on '/A_COPY_2/B/E':
svn:mergeinfo : /A/B/E:4-9
Properties on '/A_COPY_2':
svn:mergeinfo : /A:4-9
Properties on '/A_COPY_2/B/E':
svn:mergeinfo : /A/B/E:4-9
/A_COPY/B/E:</pre>
In both of the above examples the merge info on 'A_COPY_2/B/E' elides to
'A_COPY_2'.
</li>
</ul>
<ul><li><b>Empty Revision Range Equivalency</b>: If the merge info on a path is
made up entirely of paths mapped to empty revision ranges and the path has no
ancestor with merge info then the merge info fully elides.
</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- full-elision -->
<div class="h3" id="partial-elision">
<h3>Partial Elision</h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Partial Equivalency</b>: Only the merge source paths <i>unique</i> to
the child which map to empty revision ranges will elide if the merge info
between the child and ancestor is otherwise non-equivalent, e.g.:<pre>
Properties on '/A_COPY_2':
svn:mergeinfo : /A:4-6
Properties on '/A_COPY_2/B/E':
svn:mergeinfo : /A/B/E:5
/A_COPY/B/E:</pre>
The empty revision range merge info from 'A_COPY/B/E' on 'A_COPY_2/B/E'
elides, leaving:<pre>
Properties on '/A_COPY_2':
svn:mergeinfo : /A:4-6
Properties on '/A_COPY_2/B/E':
svn:mergeinfo : /A/B/E:5</pre>
</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- partial-elision -->
<div class="h3" id="non-inheritable-elision">
<h3>Elision and Non-Inheritable Revision Ranges</h3>
<p>
The above rules apply only to mergeinfo without non-inheritable revision
ranges. Mergeinfo with non-inheritable revision ranges cannot elide or be
elided to.
</p>
</div> <!-- non-inheritable-elision -->
</div> <!-- mergeinfo-elision -->
<div class="h2" id="merge-history">
<h2>Merge History</h2>
<p>Merge Tracking meta data is stored in housekeeping properties
(e.g. <code>svn:mergeinfo</code>).</p>
<div class="h3" id="merge-history-mainpulation">
<h3>Merge History Manipulation</h3>
<p>While direct manipulation of housekeeping properties can be used to
change merge info, commands to manipulate this information have been
provided. Either style of operation supports adjustment of merge info
when <a href="requirements.html#manual-merge">manual merges</a> occur,
and can also be used to fulfill <a
href="requirements.html#revision-blocking">block changes undesired for
merge</a> (later, this might be better-addressed by a separate
housekeeping property).</p>
<ul>
<li><code>merge --record-only</code> adds (or subtracts, if a
reversed revision range is supplied) merge info for a path
<i>without performing the actual merge</i>.</li>
<li><code>propedit</code>/<code>propset</code> changes merge info
for a path.</li>
<li><code>propdel</code> removes merge info for a path.</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- meta-data-mainpulation -->
<div class="h3" id="merge-history-audit">
<h3>Merge History Audit and Query</h3>
<p>The <a href="#commutative-author-and-rev">Commutative Author and Revision
Reporting</a> feature has been implemented, and will be included in 1.5.0.</p>
<p>These features may or may not be completed for 1.5.0.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#show-changesets-available">Changeset Merge
Availability</a> (<i>unimplemented</i>)</li>
<li><a href="#find-changeset">Find Changeset</a>
(<i>unimplemented</i>)</li>
</ul>
<div class="h4" id="show-changesets-available">
<h4>Changeset Merge Availability</h4>
<p>Show changesets available for merge/already merged from one or more
merge source(s). The command-line client's default output format
should be equivalent to that of <code>svn log</code>, and allow for
XML-formatted output (for machine parsing). Blue sky, the
command-line could also produce an output format equivalent to that of
<code>svn diff</code>.</p>
<p>Recent discussion can be found <a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&amp;msgNo=128233"
>here</a>. Development is tracked <a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2820">here</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="requirements.html#change-set-availability">Show
Changesets Blocked from Merging</a> portion of this feature is
scheduled for implementation post-1.5, and is dependent upon the <a
href="requirements.html#revision-blocking">revision blocking</a>
feature slated for the same timeframe.</p>
</div> <!-- show-changesets-available -->
<div class="h4" id="find-changeset">
<h4>Find Changeset</h4>
<p>Show where a changeset has been merged from/merged to, providing
merging revision, URL, and rangelist. The command-line client should
allow for XML-formatted output (for machine parsing).</p>
<p>Recent discussion can be found <a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&amp;msgNo=128233"
>here</a>. Development is tracked <a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2835">here</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="requirements.html#find-changeset">Find Paths
containing Specific Incarnation of Versioned Resource</a> portion of
this feature is not yet scheduled for implementation.</p>
</div> <!-- find-changeset -->
<div class="h4" id="commutative-author-and-rev">
<h4>Commutative Author and Revision Reporting</h4>
<div class="h5" id="auditing-scope">
<h5>Scope</h5>
<p>The following commands which show username and merge information should
respect merge information and support <a
href="requirements.html#commutative-author-and-rev">Commutative
Reporting</a>. These commands are:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>svn log</code></li>
<li><code>svn blame</code></li>
</ul>
<p><code>svn info</code>, <code>svn ls --verbose</code> and <code>svn
status --show-updates</code> are purposely not included in this list.
While one would typically need more information than they can
reasonably provide alone, adding more output to these commands would
clutter their command-line interface, reducing their utility. Merge
Tracking-aware API support for the underlying functionality provided
by these commands may be added at some point in the future (e.g. for
use by third-party clients like <a href="http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/"
>TortoiseSVN</a>).</p>
<p>A new switch, <code>--use-merge-history</code>, along with a
corresponding single-character shortcut (<code>-g</code>), will be
introduced for the toggle merge information. Using it will enable these
commands to show the additional information gleaned from parsing and
processing the merge info on the targets in question. This switch will
also work with <code>--xml</code> to include additional merge
information. The new functionality added by
<code>--use-merge-history</code> is as follows.</p>
<dl>
<dt><code>svn log</code></dt>
<dd><p>The original log message(s), in the current format, with the
addition of a list of revisions and merge source paths that have
been merged into the target. The output for <code>log</code> should
be consistent with the <code>diff</code> output for the
<code>svn:mergeinfo</code> property.</p>
<p>The <code>--verbose</code> switch will output the log information
for the merged revisions in place of the information for the revision
in which the merge occurred. Each of the original message(s) will have an
additional line indicating that it is the result of a merge, and which
revision the merge occurred in.</p>
<p>For instance, if Alice was the original author of r12, Bob was the
orginial author of r14, and Chuck merged them both r12 and r14 as part
of r24, the output of <code>svn log --use-merge-history</code>
will look like this:</p>
<pre>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r24 | chuck | 2007-04-30 10:18:01 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Merge r12 and r14 from branch to trunk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r14 | bob | 2007-04-16 18:50:29 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r24
Remove inadvertent changes to Death-Ray-o-Matic introduced in r12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r12 | alice | 2007-04-16 19:02:48 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r24
Fix frapnalyzer bug in frobnicator.
</pre>
<p>Using the same example, the output of <code>svn log
--use-merge-history --verbose</code> will look like:</p>
<pre>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r24 | chuck | 2007-04-30 10:18:01 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /trunk/death-ray.c
M /trunk/frobnicator/frapnalyzer.c
Merge r12 and r14 from branch to trunk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r14 | bob | 2007-04-16 18:50:29 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /branches/world-domination/death-ray.c
Result of a merge from: r24
Remove inadvertent changes to Death-Ray-o-Matic introduced in r12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r12 | alice | 2007-04-16 19:02:48 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /branches/world-domination/frobnicator/frapnalyzer.c
M /branches/world-domination/death-ray.c
Result of a merge from: r24
Fix frapnalyzer bug in frobnicator.
</pre>
<p>If r12 was itself a merge of r9 and r10, <code>svn log
--use-merge-history</code> for r24 will look like this:</p>
<pre>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r24 | chuck | 2007-04-30 10:18:01 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Merge r12 and r14 from branch to trunk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r14 | bob | 2007-04-16 18:50:29 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r24
Remove inadvertent changes to Death-Ray-o-Matic introduced in r12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r12 | alice | 2007-04-16 19:02:48 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r24
Fix frapnalyzer bug in frobnicator.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r10 | alice | 2007-04-16 19:02:28 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r12, r24
Fix frapnalyzer documentation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r9 | bob | 2007-04-16 19:01:48 -0500 (Mon, 16 Apr 2007) | 1 line
Result of a merge from: r12, r24
Whitespace fixes. No functional change.
</pre>
<p>In each case, merged revisions will be grouped together under the merging
revisions, and sorted by revision number. This may mean that not all log
messages will be in revision number order, but changes will be presented in
the order they were actually made.</p>
<p>Output for <code>svn log -g --xml</code> will exploit the tree structure
of XML to include child messages as subelements of the corresponding parent
log messages. Consumers can use the location of a particular log message in
the tree to determine its ancestry.</p>
<p>This output may be useful for auditing purposes to those migrating from
<a href="http://www.orcaware.com/svn/wiki/Svnmerge.py">svnmerge.py</a>, as
a replacement for repeating the entirety of the merged ranges' log
messages in the log message for the commit of a merge (e.g. svnmerge.py's
generated <em>svnmerge-commit-message.txt</em> file).</p>
</dd>
<dt><code>svn blame</code></dt>
<dd>
<p>Reuse the existing author and revision columns. Instead of listing
the merging author and revision, list the original author and revision of
that line. Unlike other commands, we do not need to worry about multiple
source revisions, because each line can have at most one author.</p>
<p>The output of <code>svn blame</code> may be the following:</p>
<pre>
2 alice This is the file 'iota'.
14 bob 'A' has changed a bit, with 'upsilon', and 'xi'.
</pre>
<p>Using the <code>-g</code> switch will show the author who most recently
changed the line, independent of which branch it was changed on (so long as
the changes have been merged). If Chuck made changes to the file in r11,
which was then merged in r14, the output of <code>svn blame -g</code> for the
same file may look like this:</p>
<pre>
2 alice This is the file 'iota'.
11 chuck 'A' has changed a bit, with 'upsilon', and 'xi'.
</pre>
<p>The <code>--verbose</code> flag also triggers additional information.
In addition to the date of the revision, <code>--verbose</code>, in
combination with <code>-g</code>, also displays the original path, relative
to the repository root, where the modifications were made. Given the above
example, <code>svn blame -g --verbose</code> will be something like this:</p>
<pre>
2 alice 2007-06-07 10:16:49 -0500 (Thu, 07 Jun 2007) /trunk/iota This is the file 'iota'.
11 chuck 2007-06-07 12:29:48 -0500 (Thu, 07 Jun 2007) /branches/a/iota 'A' has changed a bit, with 'upsilon', and 'xi'.
</pre>
<p>The output of <code>svn blame -g --xml</code> is not limited by size, and
will include all available information.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>For commits which remove merge info (e.g. reverts),
<code>--use-merge-history</code> will trace back to the original author. For
example if Alice makes a commit to code previously modified by Bob (committed
with no merge history), and Alice's commit is subsequently reverted by Chris,
we should show Bob as the author. If Bob's commit was itself the result of a
merge, we should recurse until we find a commit which did not add merge info
(the leaf node), and assume its author.</p>
</div> <!-- auditing-scope -->
<div class="h5" id="auditing-questions">
<h5>Pending Questions</h5>
</div> <!-- auditing-questions -->
<div class="h5" id="auditing-extra-credit">
<h5>Additional Features</h5>
<p>Although not part of the initial implementation, additional features have
been suggested:</p>
<ul>
<li>A configuration option to always enable
<code>--use-merge-history</code>.
</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- auditing-extra-credit -->
</div> <!-- commutative-author-and-rev -->
</div> <!-- meta-data-audit -->
</div> <!-- meta-data -->
<div class="h2" id="repeated-merge">
<h2>Repeated Merge</h2>
<p>There are two general schemes for solving the <a
href="requirements.html#repeated-merge">repeated merge</a> problem.
Subversion 1.5 uses the <a href="#mrca-merge">Most Recent Common
Ancestor (MRCA)</a> approach. If a later version of Subversion
(e.g. 2.0) overhauls the Merge Tracking implementation, it'll likely
use the <a href="#as-merge">Ancestry Set (AS)</a> approach.</p>
<p>Either solution also supports the <a
href="requirements.html#cherry-picking">cherry picking</a>, <a
href="requirements.html#rollback-merge">rollback</a>, and <a
href="requirements.html#properties">property merging</a> use cases. A
<a href="requirements.html#merge-previews">merge preview</a> which is
lighter-weight than an uncommitted merge into a WC is not
supported.</p>
<div class="h3" id="mrca-merge">
<h3>The Most Recent Common Ancestor approach</h3>
<p>In this scheme, An optional set of merge sources in each
node-revision. When asked to do a merge with only one source (that
is, just <code>svn merge URL</code>, with no second argument), you
compute the most recent ancestor and do a three-way merge between the
common ancestor, the given URL, and the WC.</p>
<p>To compute the most recent ancestor, you chain off the immediate
predecessors of each node-revision. The immediate predecessors are
the direct predecessor (the most recent node-revision within the node)
and the merge sources. An interleaved breadth-first search should
find the most recent common ancestor.</p>
</div> <!-- mrca-merge -->
<div class="h3" id="as-merge">
<h3>The Ancestry Set approach</h3>
<p>In this scheme, you record the full ancestry set for each
node-revision -- that is, the set of all changes which are accounted
for in that node-revision. (How you store this ancestry set is
unimportant; the point is, you need a reasonably efficient way of
determining it when asked.) If you are asked to "svn merge URL", you
apply the changes present in URL's ancestry but absent in WC's
ancestry. Note that this is not a single three-way merge; you may
have to apply a large number of disjoint changes to the WC.</p>
<p>For a longer description of this approach, see the <a
href="design.html#model.merging-and-ancestry">"Merging and Ancestry"
section</a> of the original <a href="design.html">design doc</a>.</p>
<div class="h4" id="aslb-merge">
<h4>Ancestry-Sensitive Line-Based Merge</h4>
<p>Make 'hunks' of contextually-merged text sensitive to ancestry.</p>
<p>A high-resolution version of <a
href="requirements.html#repeated-merge">repeated merge</a>. Rather
than tracking whole changesets, we track the lineage of specific lines
of code within a file. The basic idea is that when re-merging a
particular hunk of code, the contextual-merging process is aware that
certain lines of code already represent the merging of particular
lines of development. Jack Repenning has a great example of this from
ClearCase (see ASCII diagram below).</p>
<p>See the <a href="../variance-adjusted-patching.html">variance
adjusted patching</a> document for an extended discussion of how to
implement this by composing diffs; see <a
href="http://svn.collab.net/svn-doxygen/svn__diff_8h.html#a11"
><code>svn_diff_diff4()</code></a> for an implementation of same. We
may be closer to ancestry-sensitive merging than we think.</p>
<p>Here's an example demonstrating how individual lines of code can be
tracked. In this diagram, we're drawing the lineage of a single file,
with time flowing downwards. The file begins life with three lines of
text, "1\n2\n\3\n". The file then splits into two lines of
development.</p>
<pre>
1
2
3
/ \
/ \
/ \
one 1
two 2.5
three 3
| \ |
| \ |
| \ |
| \ |
| \ one ## This node is a human's
| two-point-five ## merge of two sides.
| three
| |
| |
| |
one one
Two two-point-five
three newline
\ three
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
one ## This node is a human's
Two-point-five ## merge of the changes
newline ## since the last merge.
three
</pre>
<p>It's the second merge that's important here.</p>
<p>In a system like Subversion, the second merge of the left branch to
the right will fail miserably: the whole file's contents will be
placed within conflict markers. That's because it's trying to dumbly
apply a patch that changes "1\n2\n3" to "one\nTwo\nthree", and the
target file has no matching lines at all.</p>
<p>A smarter system (like Clearcase) would remember that the previous
merge had happened, and specifically notice that the lines "one" and
"three" are the results of that previous merge. Therefore, it would
ask the human only to deal with the "Two" versus "two-point-five"
conflict; the earlier changes ("1\n2\n3" to "one\ntwo\nthree") would
already be accounted for.</p>
</div> <!-- aslb-merge -->
</div> <!-- as-merge -->
<div class="h3">
<h3>Comparisons, Arguments, and Questions</h3>
<p>AS allows you to merge changes from a branch out of order, without
doing any bookkeeping. MRCA requires you to merge changes from a
branch in order.</p>
<p>MRCA is simpler to implement, since it results in a three-way merge
(which is well-understood by Subversion). However, it may not handle
all edge cases. For instance, it may break down faster if the merging
topology is not hierarchical.</p>
<p>MRCA may be easier for users to understand, even though AS is
probably simpler to a mathematician.</p>
<p>Consistency with other modern version controls systems is
desirable.</p>
<p>If a user asks to merge a directory, should we apply MRCA or AS to
each subdirectory and file to determine what ancestor(s) to use? Or
should we apply MRCA or AS just once, to the directory itself? The
latter approach seems simpler and more efficient, but will break down
quickly if the user wants to merge subdirectories of a branch in
advance of merging in the whole thing.</p>
</div> <!-- h3 -->
</div> <!-- repeated-merge -->
<div class="h2" id="conflict-resolution">
<h2>Merge Conflict Resolution</h2>
<p>Merging inevitably produces conflicts which cannot be resolved by
an algorithm alone. In such a case, human intervention is required to
resolve the conflicts. The merge algorithm used by Subversion's Merge
Tracking implementation makes this problem worse, since it breaks a
requested merge range into several merges to avoid <a
href="requirements.html#repeated-merge">repeating merges</a> which
have already been applied to a merge target or its children. After a
conflict is encountered, merges of subsequent revision ranges must be
aborted, since <a
href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk/notes/tree-conflicts.txt"
>tree conflicts</a> or previous content conflicts cannot be reliably
merged into (e.g. you can't merge into a file that either isn't there
or which you could potentially merge inside one side of a conflict
marker).</p>
<p>To help alleviate the pain of conflict resolution, a merge <a
href="design.html#conflict-resolution">conflict resolution
callback</a> can be employed by Subversion clients. This callback is
invoked whenever merge conflicts are encountered, and can takes steps
like launching a graphical merge tool (for interactive conflict
resolution), or following a pre-specified directive like "always use
the version from my merge source". This last implementation can be
used to support the <a href="requirements.html#automated-merge">SCM
automated merge</a> use case.</p>
<p>The command-line client includes a merge conflict resolution
callback which behaves much like <em>svk</em>, when in interactive
mode prompting for how to resolve each conflicted file or property
value. When in non-interactive mode (or configured to disallow
interactive conflict resolution via <code>[miscellany]
interactive-conflicts = no</code>), conflict resolution is postponed
until post-merge (as in pre-1.5 releases). See the <a
href="../svn_1.5_releasenotes.html">1.5 release notes</a> for an
example.</p>
<p>In a post-1.5 release, the command-line client will provide an
interactive conflict resolution option to display some context for
each conflict in a path or property value, and prompt for how to
resolve it. The merge algorithm will attempt to continue applying
more of the requested merge after conflict is encountered, merging
what it can around the conflicted area of the WC, and possibly
supporting an option to complete the remainder of an unfinished merge
operation after conflicts have been resolved manually.</p>
<p>Related discussion from the dev@ mailing list can be found
here:</p>
<ul>
<li><a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&amp;msgNo=128091"
>First draft of interactive conflict resolution callback API and
command-line client implementation</a></li>
<li><a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&amp;msgNo=121756"
>Feedback solicited from IDE developers</a></li>
<li><a
href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&amp;msgNo=121263"
>Original API proposal</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2022"
>Issue #2022</a> is loosely related.</p>
<div class="h3" id="distributable-resolution">
<h3>Distribution of Conflict Resolution</h3>
<p>No explicit facility is provided for distribution of conflict
resolution. To support this use case, developers can co-ordinate with
each other to resolve merge conflicts on portions of a tree, and trade
patches.</p>
</div> <!-- distributable-resolution -->
</div> <!-- conflict-resolution -->
<div class="h2" id="migration-and-interoperability">
<h2>Migration and Interoperability</h2>
<div class="h3" id="migration">
<h3>Migration</h3>
<p>No explicit steps are necessary to migrate the content of a
pre-Merge Tracking repository. Only an upgrade to Subversion 1.5.0 is
necessary.</p>
<p>TODO: Merge meta data from svnmerge.py. Dan Berlin has written
Python code to perform this migration; it needs to be made available
in the <code>tools/server-side/</code> area of the distribution .</p>
</div> <!-- migration -->
<div class="h3" id="interoperability">
<h3>Interoperability</h3>
<p>Executive summary for client/repository inter-op:</p>
<ul>
<li>Older Subversion clients may <a href="requirements.html#compatibility"
>interact with a 1.5.x+ Subversion repository</a>, but will continue
to lack Merge Tracking functionality for:
<ul>
<li>Recording meta data about any merges performed.</li>
<li>Using merge meta data to avoid <a
href="requirements.html#repeated-merge">repeated merging</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>1.5.x+ Subversion clients may interact with a older Subversion
repositories, with Merge Tracking functionality effectively
neutralized.</li>
</ul>
<p>Gory detail for client/repository inter-op:</p>
<ul>
<li>A repository 1.4.x- doesn't provide any way to retrieve
inherited merge info for a path (regardless of client version). For
a 1.5.x+ client which could theoretically make use of any merge info
available to it, this will typically neutralize its Merge Tracking
functionality. The one case where merge info might come into play
is when the merge info for a path is available locally (e.g. in the
client's WC); in this case, repeated merges may be avoided.</li>
<li>A 1.5.x client will record merge tracking meta data for merges
performed, regardless of repository version. However, a repository
1.4.x- won't know to do anything special with this merge info. When
the repository is upgraded to 1.5.x+, we'll retain this merge info
in the svn:mergeinfo property, but I'm not yet clear on what'll
happen to the sqlite merge info index. We may need some sort of
upgrade path here, but don't have one yet, and aren't promising
one.</li>
</ul>
<p>Subversion <a href="requirements.html#dump-load">dump files
continue to be fully portable</a> between pre- and post-Merge Tracking
versions of Subversion.</p>
</div> <!-- interoperability -->
</div> <!-- migration-and-interoperability -->
<div class="h2" id="related-documents">
<h2>Related Documents and Discussion</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="summit.html"
>CollabNet customer Merge Tracking Summit</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.codeville.org/">Codeville</a> is reputed to
excel both in its usefulness of storage of line-history in the
<em>weave</em> format, and a corresponding merge algorithm:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://revctrl.org/PreciseCodevilleMerge">"Precise
Codeville merge"</a> algorithm and Python implementation. The
algorithm takes into account line history, history points where
they came from, the ability to retrieve ancestors' text as needed,
and a snapshot of the current file. It purports accuracy where
<a href="http://revctrl.org/CodevilleMerge">other algorithms fall
down</a>.</li>
<li>Bram Cohen describes <a
href="http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.revctrl/2"
>the merge algorithm</a> (May 2005)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a
href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk/subversion/libsvn_fs_base/notes/structure">Structure
of the Subversion FS BerkeleyDB backend</a></li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- related-documents -->
<p>$Date$</p>
</div> <!-- h1 -->
</body>
</html>