[RFC] Meta-branch

[John Arbash Meinel]

Robert Collins wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 21:32 -0600, John Arbash Meinel wrote:
>> Robert Collins wrote:
>>> The discussion about tags and earlier about the location of subtree-root
>>> branch storage/branches seems to coalesce into a single prerequisite
>>> feature: a branch of data about the users branch. This data should
>>> propogate, and people should be able to record decisions in it without
>>> 'committing' to their source code.
>>>
>>> So heres a proposal for a meta-branch feature.
>>>
>>> A meta branch records data about a branch. It coexists with the branch
>>> at the same URL and has:
>>>  * Its own 'meta-last-revision'
>>>  * One weave/knit for each thing it records, today that will be 'tags'
>>> and 'subtree-locations' and stored in the repository
>>> as .bzr/repository/tags and .bzr/repository/subtree-locations
>> My concern is that 'tags' should actually be a branch property, not a
>> repository property.
> 
> Its a branch property delta compressed by the repository.
> 
>> Otherwise, how do I give "release-0.7" to both libfoo and progbaz.
> 
> Indeed, that was a problem with the initial proposals.
> 
>> If we make them a repository property, I always have to fully qualify my
>> tag names "libfoo-release-0.7"
>>
>> It is workable, but since I have to have the environment of a branch in
>> order to 'get', it seems unnecessary.
> 
> you would not need to in this proposal: the meta-last-revision marker
> gives you a unique, branch qualified, copy of the tags - you will not
> see other branches tags.

How do I update the meta-last-revision marker without updating my branch?

How do I set tags in remote branches without updating them? (It might be
a simple as 'bzr push' checks both last-revision markers, and pushes
either one if it is out of date).

It seems a little bit iffy. But we are going to be doing the same thing
with inventory.weave the first time repositories land.

...

> Its entirely possible that we want different merge tweaks on the two
> files in the meta-branch, but as they are both versioned I don't see it
> being really relevant to the meta-branch proposal per se.
> 
>> So, I'm not 100%, but I wouldn't give you a minus on it.
> 
> Rob
> 

I agree. If we can work out how meta-information propagates when actual
information hasn't changed, I think we have a good solution here.

John
=:->


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