After I messed up a svn repo because of a wrong merge I started to read svn book and how to properly merge a branch into trunk.
Let’s assume you have a branch called my-branch.
1. Go into branch folder (/var/www/my-branch)
To be sure you are in the branch folder just type svn info. You should see: URL: svn://svn.example.com/project/branches/my-branch
2. Commit or revert everything to have a clean copy and update: svn up
3. Bring the last changes from trunk into your branch
svn merge http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
see changes and test
svn status
4. If everything is fine, commit those changes into your branch
svn ci -m ‘last changes from trunk into branch’
If something went wrong you can revert with svn revert . -R
5. Go into trunk folder (you should also have a trunk clone)
6. Update your trunk copy:
svn up
7. Most important. Bring changes from BRANCH to TRUNK.
svn merge --reintegrate svn://svn.example.com/project/branches/my-branch
8.
svn st
to see changes and test
9. Finally, commit your branch changes to trunk
svn ci -m “Merge my-branch into trunk”
Now, you can delete the old branch:
svn delete svn://svn.example.com/project/branches/my-branch -m “Remove my-branch”