SVN merge adding parameters. WTF? Or how to do big merges?

Posted by HeavyWave on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by HeavyWave
Published on 2010-04-21T05:49:23Z Indexed on 2010/04/21 5:53 UTC
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I am doing an SVN merge for a branch, and in one of the files I see this:

GetQueryReferenceData(int sessionId, Int32 sessionId)

Which means that the merge tool just added another parameter without asking any questions. Imagine if it was a call to Substring(0) and in another branch it would be Substring(0,2). That is completely different behavior, how does it even get to decide which one to choose? Good thing it came up during compile time.

The problem is that it will not be marked as a conflict and will be merged automatically. That is very dangerous behavior and if you don't have the luxury of having a unit test for every line of code - you are screwed.

What am I doing wrong and how to do big merges without the merging tool putting in dangerous changes silently? Is there a merge tool that is not language agnostic?

I am using Tortoise SVN.

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