5. Branching and merging

CVS allows you to isolate changes onto a separate line of development, known as a branch. When you change files on a branch, those changes do not appear on the main trunk or other branches.

Later you can move changes from one branch to another branch (or the main trunk) by merging. Merging involves first running cvs update -j, to merge the changes into the working directory. You can then commit that revision, and thus effectively copy the changes onto another branch.

5.1 What branches are good for
5.2 Creating a branch
5.3 Accessing branches		Checking out and updating branches
5.4 Branches and revisions		Branches are reflected in revision numbers
5.5 Magic branch numbers
5.6 Merging an entire branch
5.7 Merging from a branch several times
5.8 Merging differences between any two revisions		Merging differences between two revisions
5.9 Merging can add or remove files		What if files are added or removed?
5.10 Merging and keywords		Avoiding conflicts due to keyword substitution