I don't use 'cvs update -j' to merge it into -stable. 'merge' doesn't work when you've already merged. What *I* do is this, which is a bit more work but does do the job 95% of the time.

% cvs log file-to-merge. (Figure out which revision(s) needs to go into the branch). % cvs diff -c -r1.A -r1.B file-to-merge > cdif % cvs update -r BRANCH_TAG % patch file-to-merge < cdif .... % emacs -nw file-to-merge file-to-merge.rej .... % cvs diff -bu file-to-merge [ Review the merged patch, make sure it's ok, build/test/etc. on my box ] % cvs commit file-to-merge

This is alot of work, but it *does* the job. Whole-scale merging of trees and directories doesn't work when the trees have already been merged. CVS doesn't operate on the principal of 'everlasting' branches that keep getting 'merges' happen to them. As I understand the CVS model, if we merged everything into -stable, then we should build a new branch at that point in -current since the files are merged.

Merges are 'merges', not 'sort of merges'.

Nate