merge and participate to open source or external projects?

 

 

Ellié Computing Merge Pro is a perfect tool when you want to work with open source or external projects. The 3-way feature is extremely performant in these case, out-performing any 2-way only tool.

How to work ?

• When you get a version from a library or tool source code, keep the archive in a safe place.
• For the first time, just use it as is. You can choose to add only the files that you modify to your source code control or all of them (but you may bloat your SCC for very large projects). Validate your modifications locally.
• Then if you want to publish some of your modifications:
  • Setup a 2-way diff or merge view
  • Use an archive converter (see Converters) or expand the archive by yourself, this version will be your reference.
  • Compare your working version with the reference
  • Generate patches (for the selected, bookmarked or all items as you like)
  • Propose the patches
• When you integrate a new version of the external project:
  • Setup a 3-way merge view - Ellié Computing Merge Pro is mandatory here.
  • If its the first time, setup an Ancestor directory containing the latest version of the external project that you integrated
    • Use an archive converter (see Converters) or expand the new archive by yourself, this version will be Their version (let's put it on Right side)
    • Put to the left side your working version
    • Choose the right side as output (browse menu button / select as output)
    • Set up the criteria for comparison (generally using Compare contents if date or size are different is quick and good) and merge (particularly the merge rules, the default being perfect for this case, and the text merge rules)
  • Else reuse this Ancestor directory that you kept safe, reuse the ECMS you saved last time and start by selecting everything and choose Compare again to restart from sane bases
  • Let the Automatic Visit (using the Scan sub-folders button in toolbar) show you all the conflicts and the files which get merged automatically (Auto-merge success)
  • Double-click the items to review the merges and accept them with the Save and Resolve folder item in the opened text views or directly from right-click menu Merge result / Write item, you can mark / Hide done items
  • Copy all the left files that you merged over the Ancestor (to note that your changes were integrated), this operation will avoid tedious double-merge if you repeat the operation.
  • When finished with the merge, save your ECMS project and keep the Ancestor directory safe for new integrations.