Skip to Main Content
Version Control with Subversion, 2nd Edition
book

Version Control with Subversion, 2nd Edition

by C. Michael Pilato, Ben Collins-Sussman, Brian W. Fitzpatrick
September 2008
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
432 pages
13h 57m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Version Control with Subversion, 2nd Edition

Vendor Branches

As is especially the case when developing software, the data that you maintain under version control is often closely related to, or perhaps dependent upon, someone else’s data. Generally, the needs of your project will dictate that you stay as up to date as possible with the data provided by that external entity without sacrificing the stability of your own project. This scenario plays itself out all the time—anywhere that the information generated by one group of people has a direct effect on that which is generated by another group.

For example, software developers might be working on an application that makes use of a third-party library. Subversion has just such a relationship with the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) library (see The Apache Portable Runtime Library). The Subversion source code depends on the APR library for all its portability needs. In earlier stages of Subversion’s development, the project closely tracked APR’s changing API, always sticking to the bleeding edge of the library’s code churn. Now that both APR and Subversion have matured, Subversion attempts to synchronize with APR’s library API only at well-tested, stable release points.

Now, if your project depends on someone else’s information, you could attempt to synchronize that information with your own in several ways. Most painfully, you could issue oral or written instructions to all the contributors of your project, telling them to make sure they have the specific versions of that third-party ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Subversion Version Control: Using The Subversion Version Control System in Development Projects

Subversion Version Control: Using The Subversion Version Control System in Development Projects

William Nagel
Version Control with Git, 3rd Edition

Version Control with Git, 3rd Edition

Prem Kumar Ponuthorai, Jon Loeliger

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596510336Errata Page