Comment 1 for bug 307302

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 9:26 AM, John Carr <email address hidden> wrote:
> If looms are the answer - how can i split an existing branch into
> seperate looms, preserving history but also providing a "cleaned" and
> "nice" and "beautiful" patch (bundle?) series for a reviewer.
>

You don't split a branch into separate looms. You make a branch a
loom, and then create threads within that loom. Each thread
corresponds to a patch that you'll send to reviewer.

One big difference between looms and rebase is that you can start
working that way as soon as you start your branch. For each local
commit, you can decide which thread it belongs in.

The flip side is that it's not obvious how to move from an existing
big branch into a bunch of threads in a loom. What I'd do is something
like:
    bzr branch trunk new-loom
    cd new-loom
    bzr loomify --base trunk
    bzr create-thread name-of-patch-1
    bzr merge ../mega-branch
    bzr shelve
      (select stuff relevant to patch-1)
    bzr ci
    bzr create-thread name-of-patch-2
    bzr unshelve
      (select stuff relevant to patch-2)
    bzr ci
    [Rinse and repeat]

> Otherwise, what is the answer?
>

Also, the bzr rebase plugin exists.

jml