[M3devel] More CVS advice needed, on merging

[Rodney M. Bates]

I went back to work on a problem deferred since last fall and
eventually reconstructed this scenario, which I think is accurate.

I had a modified version of one source file from the CVS repository,
a part of the gcc back end code generator.

Before I was ready to check it in, I needed updated files in some
other place, so did a cvs update (on all of cm3).  The CVS copy
of the one I had modified had changed drastically, (because of a
switch to a newer version of gcc).  CVS helpfully merged my changes
into the new version, but didn't leave me any kind of backup.

Because the changes in the repository were so extensive, the merged
version was a long way from being useful.  I was quite difficult to
reconstruct what I had changed.  I eventually located files on a
mirrored computer that helped, though not the modified file I really
would have liked.

So, is there a way to get CVS to either
1) make a backup of a local copy when it merges it with updates from
    the repository, or
2) do an update but refuse altogether to merge.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------
Rodney M. Bates, retired assistant professor
Dept. of Computer Science, Wichita State University
Wichita, KS 67260-0083
316-978-3922
rodney.bates at wichita.edu