Subversion branch reintegration

Question

When a branch is reintegrated to the trunk, is that branch effectively dead?

Can you make modifications to the branch after the reintegration and merge those back

Answer 1

Some advice on merging the changes back if someone makes changes to the branch multiple times (pre 1.5): Remember at which revision you did the merge! Either write the revision numbers down somewhere, or (which is easier) make a tag. (You can of course find it out later, but that's a PITA.)

Example:

You have a repository layout like this:

/your_project
  /trunk
  /branches
  /tags

Let's say it is a web application, and you have planned to make a release. You would create a tag, and from that (or from trunk) a branch in which you do the bugfixes:

/your_project
  /trunk
  /branches
    /1.0.0-bugfixes
  /tags
    /1.0.0

Doing it this way, you can integrate the new features in the trunk. All bugfixes would happen only within the bugfix branch and before each release you make a tag of the current version (now from the bugfix branch).

Let's assume you did a fair amount of bugfixing and released those to the production server and you need one of those features desperately in the current trunk:

/your_project
  /trunk
  /branches
    /1.0.0-bugfixes
  /tags
    /1.0.0
    /1.0.1
    /1.0.2

You can now just integrate the changes between 1.0.0 and 1.0.2 in your trunk (assuming you are in your working copy):

svn merge http://rep/your_project/tag/1.0.0 http://rep/your_project/tag/1.0.2 .

This is what you should remember. You already merged the changes between 1.0.0 and 1.0.2 upon the trunk. Let's assume there are more changes in the current production release:

/your_project
  /trunk
  /branches
    /1.0.0-bugfixes
  /tags
    /1.0.0
    /1.0.1
    /1.0.2
    /1.0.3
    /1.0.4

You are now ready to release the new version from trunk, but the last changes of your bugfixes are still missing:

svn merge http://rep/your_project/tag/1.0.2 http://rep/your_project/tag/1.0.4 .

Now you have all changes merged on your trunk, and you can make your release (don't forget to test it first).

/your_project
  /trunk
  /branches
    /1.0.0-bugfixes
    /1.1.0-bugfixes
  /tags
    /1.0.0
    /1.0.1
    /1.0.2
    /1.0.3
    /1.0.4
    /1.1.0