Re: cvs2svn conversion directly to git ready for experimentation

[Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>]

Simon 'corecode' Schubert wrote:
> Steffen Prohaska wrote:
>> BTW, togit creates much more complex branching patterns than cvs2svn
>> does. The attached file branching.png displays a small view of a
>> branching pattern that extends downwards over a couple of screens.
>> I checked the cvs2svn history again. It doesn't contain anything
>> of similar complexity.
> 
> haha yea, there is still some issue with duplicate branch names and the
> branchpoint.  if it doesn't get the branch right, it will always "pull"
> files from the parent branch.

This sounds very much like the problem reported by Daniel Jacobowitz
[1].  The problem is that if you create a branch A on a file, then
create branch B from branch A before making a commit on branch A, then
CVS doesn't record that branch A was the source of branch B.  (It treats
B as if it sprouted directly from the revision that was the *source* of
branch A.)  The same problem exists if "B" is a tag.

The only way to determine the correct branch hierarchy is to consider
the branch hierarchy of multiple files at the same time.

cvs2svn 2.0 includes code to choose a "preferred parent" of each branch
and try to use that parent for every file that is on the branch.  It
helps simplify branch creation quite a bit.  The main limitation is that
it still doesn't consider the revision copied back to trunk from a
vendor branch as the possible parent of a branch whose nominal source
was on the vendor branch (a limitation that has come up elsewhere in
this thread).

Michael

[1] http://cvs2svn.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=1441