[Svnmerge] Remembering --bidirectional status

[David James]

On 11/9/06, Michael Haggerty <mhagger at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Currently one has to supply the -b/--bidirectional option to many merge
> operations.  Presumably, if this option is used inconsistently during
> later merges, nonsense will result.
>
> Wouldn't it be nicer to allow the --bidirectional option to be passed to
> "svnmerge.py init" and remember it in the svnmerge properties?  If a
> directory is initialized in this way, then later operations would
> automatically be done in bidirectional mode.

Great idea, Michael. If you setup a bidirectional merge structure
using 'init', all merges will need the bidirectional flag. It makes
more sense to supply the '--bidirectional' flag at init time rather
than on each and every merge.

I think that we should also deprecate the '--bidirectional' option for
merges, as well. Folks who need a bidirectional merge structure should
specify this at init time.

We should also provide a way for users to add the 'bidirectional'
property to a directory after it has already been uninitialized. Folks
might initially create a unidirectional merge structure, and then
later decide to switch to a bidirectional merge structure. Conversely,
it should also be possible to turn off bidirectional mode for a
directory, if you decide that you no longer need to do bidirectional
merges.

Would it make sense to use the 'init' command to switch to
bidirectional mode?  To switch off the bidirectional mode, you might
use the 'init' command as well, but with a '--non-bidirectional'
option.

Cheers,

David