Bazaar

Linking sub-trees with distinct history to parent tree (nested tree)

Asked by Florian Rathgeber

I keep all my documents versioned in one large bzr repository. This repository is mirrored on a server for backup and synchronization purposes. However, occasionally I want subtrees (e.g. for papers) of this repository to be independent (i.e. have their independent history foremost).

What's the best way to facilitate a setup like this? Plus is there a way to "link" the subtrees to the parent tree such that when I branch the repository from the server to another machine (or more commonly pull from there), all the children are branched / updated as well?

I supposed the answer to this are nested trees, but I couldn't quite figure out what's the intended way of using them. Could someone please point me in the right direction?

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Bazaar Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#1

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

Revision history for this message
Vincent Ladeuil (vila) said : 		#2

That's right, you want nested trees. The bad news is that they aren't implemented yet :-/

Your next best alternative is to split your tree into independent projects (subtrees) that you can version individually.

Revision history for this message
Vincent Ladeuil (vila) said : 		#3

Reply after expiration

Revision history for this message
Florian Rathgeber (florian-rathgeber) said : 		#4

That's what I did. Today I tried out the externals plugin, which already comes quite close to what I want. It recurses commits to the external branches, which is not always welcome.

It does not work for another use case I have: I use bzr to version my dotfiles, including .bazaar. Now when I use externals to link in all my bzr plugins to .bazaar/plugins I get a chicken-egg problem when I want to "bootstrap" these dotfiles into a new home directory on another machine. In order to use the externals feature to get the externals plugin (and all others) I would already need it installed.

I hope I could make my point clear. Is there any solution to this?

Revision history for this message
Vincent Ladeuil (vila) said : 		#5

Well, addressing the bootstrap problem can only be achieved by having nested trees implemented...or have the externals plugin part of your initial installation.

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Florian Rathgeber for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.