(cvs.info.gz) Merging and keywords

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 Merging and keywords
 ====================
 
    If you merge files containing keywords ( Keyword
 substitution), you will normally get numerous conflicts during the
 merge, because the keywords are expanded differently in the revisions
 which you are merging.
 
    Therefore, you will often want to specify the `-kk' (
 Substitution modes) switch to the merge command line.  By
 substituting just the name of the keyword, not the expanded value of
 that keyword, this option ensures that the revisions which you are
 merging will be the same as each other, and avoid spurious conflicts.
 
    For example, suppose you have a file like this:
 
             +---------+
            _! 1.1.2.1 !   <-  br1
           / +---------+
          /
         /
      +-----+    +-----+
      ! 1.1 !----! 1.2 !
      +-----+    +-----+
 
 and your working directory is currently on the trunk (revision 1.2).
 Then you might get the following results from a merge:
 
      $ cat file1
      key $Revision: 1.2 $
      . . .
      $ cvs update -j br1
      U file1
      RCS file: /cvsroot/first-dir/file1,v
      retrieving revision 1.1
      retrieving revision 1.1.2.1
      Merging differences between 1.1 and 1.1.2.1 into file1
      rcsmerge: warning: conflicts during merge
      $ cat file1
      <<<<<<< file1
      key $Revision: 1.2 $
      =======
      key $Revision: 1.1.2.1 $
      >>>>>>> 1.1.2.1
      . . .
 
    What happened was that the merge tried to merge the differences
 between 1.1 and 1.1.2.1 into your working directory.  So, since the
 keyword changed from `Revision: 1.1' to `Revision: 1.1.2.1', CVS tried
 to merge that change into your working directory, which conflicted with
 the fact that your working directory had contained `Revision: 1.2'.
 
    Here is what happens if you had used `-kk':
 
      $ cat file1
      key $Revision: 1.2 $
      . . .
      $ cvs update -kk -j br1
      U file1
      RCS file: /cvsroot/first-dir/file1,v
      retrieving revision 1.1
      retrieving revision 1.1.2.1
      Merging differences between 1.1 and 1.1.2.1 into file1
      $ cat file1
      key $Revision$
      . . .
 
    What is going on here is that revision 1.1 and 1.1.2.1 both expand
 as plain `Revision', and therefore merging the changes between them
 into the working directory need not change anything.  Therefore, there
 is no conflict.
 
    There is, however, one major caveat with using `-kk' on merges.
 Namely, it overrides whatever keyword expansion mode CVS would normally
 have used.  In particular, this is a problem if the mode had been `-kb'
 for a binary file.  Therefore, if your repository contains binary
 files, you will need to deal with the conflicts rather than using `-kk'.
 

Info Catalog

(cvs.info.gz) Merging adds and removals

(cvs.info.gz) Branching and merging