Re: Multiple branches and git-svn

From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
Date: Aug 21, 2007, 12:35 UTC
Message-ID: <86wsvpf4k7.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz>
In-Reply-To: <20070821115611.GA21410@mimvista.com>

David Watson <dwatson@mimvista.com> writes:

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> Yes, that's quite true. It took me quite a while to figure that out
> when I first started using git-svn, and its non-sensicalness nearly
> put me off using git entirely. My workflow at this point is to use
> git-cherry-pick -e to pull in any changes from other branches, then
> delete the git-svn-id line.
>
> Essentially, merging using git-svn is almost entirely broken, since
> an inconsistent tool is worthless - you spend more time figuring out
> if it's going to break, and working around the breakage, than you
> save using it.

Full agreement.

> Now, I'm not sure this is 100% the fault of git-svn. Perhaps keeping
> its metadata about which SVN branch it's connected to isn't the best
> thing, but git-merge is doing exactly what you ask for.  Perhaps we
> need a merge command in git-svn that does the right thing?

Git svn needs to recognize a merge for what it is, and has to ignore the branch which has been merged, looking further for git-svn-id lines or whatever. Cherrypicking is harder to contain. Basically, I think it is a mistake to use something as fragile as the git-svn-id line in the log for determining the branch to use for committing. Instead, a fixed association of git branches with git-svn should be established. Even if one needs to write this manually into some configuration file. Before git-svn does not have reliable information, it should refuse to commit. One could specify this on the command line, too: that is a small price to pay for being sure that one commits where one wants to.

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> Although what that right thing would be, I'm not quite sure.  Either
> way, there needs to be a BIG GIGANTIC WARNING in the git-svn manual
> that if you actually use git for what it claims to be great at
> (i.e., merging) you may be in for a world of pain, with your
> coworkers and boss coming at you with pitchforks and
> torches. Especially because there are so many git users who need to
> interoperate with SVN.

Yes.

-- 
David Kastrup