Merging 2 branches which create the same directory causes confusion

[Sami Haahtinen]

When bzr merges 2 trees that create the same directory the directory gets renamed and can cause confusion. It's not obvious that the renamed directory is actually a versioned directory too that can be manipulated with the bzr commands.

Quick solution would be to add a note stating that the files can be moved to the new directory with "bzr move"

[Sami Haahtinen (ressu)]

This is an example of the situation where this bug can occur, there are no conflicting files, the only conflict is the directory itself.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

Confirmed; agree that more information on the conflict would help.

Ideally we would also note a file-id join to allow better future merges.

[John A Meinel (jameinel)]

Right now, this is what happens:

$ bzr init a
$ cd a
$ echo a > a
$ bzr add a
$ bzr commit -m a
$ cd ..
$ bzr branch a b
$ cd b
$ bzr mkdir foo
$ bzr commit -m 'b foo'
$ cd ../a
$ bzr mkdir foo
$ bzr commit -m 'a foo'
$ bzr merge ../b
Conflict adding file foo. Moved existing file to foo.moved.
1 conflicts encountered.

$ bzr status
removed:
  a
added:
  foo/
renamed:
  foo => foo.moved
conflicts:
  Conflict adding file foo. Moved existing file to foo.moved.
pending merges:
  John Arbash Meinel 2006-07-21 foo

I think this is the exact same thing that happens when merging files where both trees added the same filename.

I don't see it as any more or less confusing than the other case, so I would like to close this bug.
Martin, would you care to comment, since you agreed with the bug?

[Aaron Bentley (abentley)]

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John A Meinel wrote:
> $ bzr status
> removed:
> a
> added:
> foo/
> renamed:
> foo => foo.moved
> conflicts:
> Conflict adding file foo. Moved existing file to foo.moved.
> pending merges:
> John Arbash Meinel 2006-07-21 foo

Wait a sec-- why's 'a' listed as removed?

Aaron
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[John A Meinel (jameinel)]

From an earlier test. Please ignore it.