SVK::Command::Branch(3) 				User Contributed Perl Documentation				   SVK::Command::Branch(3)

NAME

       SVK::Command::Branch - Manage a project with its branches

SYNOPSIS

	branch --create BRANCH [DEPOTPATH]

	branch --list [--all]
	branch --create BRANCH [--tag] [--local] [--switch-to] [--from|--from-tag BRANCH|TAG] [DEPOTPATH]
	branch --move BRANCH1 BRANCH2
	branch --merge BRANCH1 BRANCH2 ... TARGET
	branch --checkout BRANCH [PATH] [DEPOTPATH]
	branch --delete BRANCH1 BRANCH2 ...
	branch --setup DEPOTPATH
	branch --push [BRANCH]
	branch --pull [BRANCH]
	branch --offline [BRANCH]
	branch --online [BRANCH]

OPTIONS

	-l [--list]	   : list branches for this project
	--listprojects	   : list avaliable projects
	--create	   : create a new branch
	--tag		   : create in the tags directory
	--local 	   : targets in local branch
	--delete [--rm|del]: delete BRANCH(s)
	--checkout [--co]  : checkout BRANCH in current directory
	--switch-to	   : switch the current checkout to another branch
				 (can be paired with --create)
	--merge 	   : automatically merge all changes from BRANCH1, BRANCH2,
				 etc, to TARGET
	--project	   : specify the target project name
	--push		   : move changes to wherever this branch was copied from
	--pull		   : sync changes from wherever this branch was copied from
	--setup 	   : setup a project for a specified DEPOTPATH
	--from BRANCH	   : specify the source branch name
	--from-tag TAG	   : specify the source tag name
	-C [--check-only]  : try a create, move or merge operation but make no
			     changes
	-P [--patch] FILE  : Write the patch between the branch and where it was
			     copied from to FILE
	--export	   : used with --checkout to create a detached copy
	--offline	   : takes the current branch offline, making a copy
			     under //local
	--online	   : takes the current branch online, pushing changes back
			     to the mirror path, and then switches to the mirror

DESCRIPTION

       SVK provides tools to more easily manage your project's branching and merging, so long as you use the standard "trunk/, branches/, tags/"
       directory layout for your project or specifically tell SVK where your branches live.

Usage (without projects)
       A very simple sample usage might be to checkout the trunk from a project you want to work on but don't have upstream commit rights for.
       This allows you to maintain a local branch and to send in patches.

       Assuming you have alread mirrored this repository to //mirror/Project

	   svk co //mirror/Project/trunk
       or
	   svk branch --co trunk //mirror/Project/

       and then

	   svk branch --offline

       You're now working in a local branch, make local commits and changes as you need to.  If you want to bring in changes from your remote
       repository, you can pull them down

	   svk branch --pull

       To see what changes you've made, you can create a patch between the local branch and the remote repository

	   svk branch -P - --push

       If you have commit rights to the remote repository, you can also

	   svk branch --push

       to send your changes.

       You can use svk branch's branching capability in this mode, but it will be much friendlier if you set up a project

Usage (projects)
       To initialize a project in a repository, run the setup command

	   svk branch --setup //mirror/Project

       If you have the standard trunk branches tags directories svk will offer them as the starting point.  In fact, if you have trunk branches
       and tags directories, svk will try to use them without neeting --setup, but you won't be able to use the --project flag and will need to
       use depotpaths in commands.

       The rest of this documentation assumes you've set up a project called Example in //mirror/Project

       If you're in a working copy of svk where it can work out the Project name, you can leave off the --project flag from the examples below,
       but you can branch/tag/merge without having working copies

       Branching

       To check out the trunk, you can run

	   svk branch --co trunk --project Example

       To create a branch for release engineering

	   svk branch --create Exmaple-1.0-releng --project Example

       Since you have a checkout of trunk already, you can convert that

	   cd trunk
	   svk branch --switch-to Example-1.0-releng

       Or you can get a clean checkout

	   svk branch --co Example-1.0-releng --project Example

       If changes are made on trunk and you wish to bring them down to the release engineering branch, you can do that with the branch merge
       command

	   svk branch --merge trunk Example-1.0-releng

       If you're cautious, use the check flags first:

	   svk branch -C --merge trunk Example-1.0-releng
	   svk branch -P -  --merge trunk Example-1.0-releng

       These will show you what svk wants to do.

       Lets say you want to add a feature to trunk but work on a branch so you don't inconvenience others who are working on trunk:

	   svk branch --create Feature --project Example

       work on your feature, svk ci some changes

	   svk branch --merge Feature trunk --project Example

       continue to bring down changes several ways

	   svk branch --pull
	   svk branch --merge trunk Feature
	   svk branch --merge trunk .	(if you're in a working copy of the branch)

       and then merge back more feature work as you need to

       To get rid of a branch when you're done with it

	   svk branch --delete Feature --project Example

       To see all of your branches, you can do:

	   svk branch --list --project Example

       Tagging

       If you've been working on your releng branch and are ready to cut a release, you can easily create a tag

	   svk branch --tag --create 1.0rc1 --from Example-1.0-releng --project Example

       If you would like to check out this tag, use

	   svk branch --tag --co 1.0rc1 --project Example

Project Property Details
       SVK branch also provides another project loading mechanism by setting properties on root path. Current usable properties for SVK branch are

	 'svk:project:<projectName>:path-trunk'
	 'svk:project:<projectName>:path-branches'
	 'svk:project:<projectName>:path-tags'

       These properties are useful when you are not using the standard "trunk/, branches/, tags/" directory layout. For example, a mirrored
       depotpath '//mirror/projA' may have trunk in "/trunk/projA/" directory, branches in "/branches/projA", and have a standard "/tags"
       directory.  Then by setting the following properties on root path of remote repository, it can use SVK branch to help manage the project:

	 'svk:project:projA:path-trunk => /trunk/projA'
	 'svk:project:projA:path-branches => /branches/projA'
	 'svk:project:projA:path-tags => /tags'

       Be sure to have all "path-trunk", "path-branches" and "path-tags" set at the same time.

perl v5.10.0							    2008-09-13						   SVK::Command::Branch(3)