[p4] Laura's "Branching: Convergence vs. Divergence" paper

[Robert Cowham]

I was worried myself when I saw that slide. Apparently it is a side effect
of the new common ancestor detection in 2006.1 which is biased towards
"divergence" as opposed to "convergence" between branches. Thus there are
some edge cases which require all the steps.

I have set aside some time next week to go through in detail her examples
and try and make sure I really understand things.

Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
[mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of Rick Macdonald
Sent: 27 September 2006 17:03
To: 'Perforce Users Mailing List'
Subject: [p4] Laura's "Branching: Convergence vs. Divergence" paper

Robert Cowham wrote:
> There were hints at the European Users Conference that such a thing 
> may not be far off...
>
> (See also slide 7 in
> http://www.perforce.com/perforce/eucon2006/presentations/laura_wingerd
> .pdf)
>
> Robert
I don't understand all the steps that Laura gives for assuring a correct
copy in the "Merge down - Copy up" sequence. I've recently put "Merge down -
Copy up" into a scripts, but only with steps 1-2-3-7, and with no "-f" in
step 2.

Assuring a correct copy
  The recipe:
   1.  p4  integ -n [target] [source]
   2.  p4  integ -f [source] [target]
   3.  p4  resolve -at
   4.  p4  diff -sr | p4 -x - revert
   5.  p4  integ [source] [target]
   6.  p4  resolve -at
   7.  p4  submit

This is similar to what she has on page 273 of her book, but she's added
"-f" to step 2, and added steps 4-5-6. In the book she runs "p4 opened" 
to make sure no files are opened. Here, the added steps 4-5-6 seem related
to opened files.

Here is what I do and don't understand:

1 - make sure the "merge down" has nothing left to do.
2 - why the -f " to act without regard for previous integration history"? Is
this to cover the extra steps on page 274 "Integrating neglected files"? Are
there any side-effects of "-f" to know about?
3 - "-at" is OK since the merge down is complete and this is the copy up
step.
4 - 5 - 6 :revert "Opened files that are the same as the revision in the
depot". These are open files in the target? Why not do this right after step
3? Now I'm lost!

...RickM...

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