We have a project where a vendor produces some custom code for us and we produce the backend content. Every time they ship us a new version, we manually merge that whole folder structure into our repository. This is easy for added and modified files (just copy/paste), but I have to create a batch script to delete all the files/folders that were removed (I use a diff tool to get a list of the deleted files, then make a batch file from that).
Our SVN repo looks like this:
OurProject\
–OurBackendCode\
–VendorCode\
I know I could first delete all the files in the vendor directory in our repo, then add in the new version. That would be easy but leave unwanted ‘deleted’ and ‘added’ entries to the SVN log (the whole reason we’re keeping a copy of their code in our SVN is so we can have easy access to the log for troubleshooting).
Is there an easier way to merge these deleted files into my repo?
EDIT: Tim rightly points out that if we just allowed the vendor access to our SVN repo, they could make their changes on a branch. Unfortunately, that’s not my call; I’m just a developer. Plus I doubt we’d trust them (I don’t know anything about SVN security).
2nd EDIT: We ended up just deleting the existing vendor branch and just adding in the new vendor code. But I brought up the idea of giving the vendor access to our SVN and it’s floating upward with some promise 🙂
Why don’t you allow them access to your SVN repo – perhaps a branch and then you merge into yours?
It is simple to allow them only access to the parts they need. I really do think this is the best solution for you and them.