================
LCA Tree Merging
================

There are 2 ways that you get LCA merge resolution in bzr. First, if you use
``bzr merge --lca``, the *content* of files will be resolved using a Least Common
Ancestors algorithm. That is described in <lca-merge.html> not here.

This document describes how we handle merging tree-shape when there is not
a single unique ancestor (criss-cross merge). With a single LCA, we use
simple 3-way-merge logic.

When there are multiple possible LCAs, we use a different algorithm for
handling tree-shape merging. Described here.

As a simple example, here is a revision graph which we will refer to often::

  .    BASE
  .  /      \
  . LCA1   LCA2
  . |   \ /   |
  . |    X    |
  . |   / \   |
  . THIS  OTHER

In this graph, ``THIS`` and ``OTHER`` both have ``LCA1`` and ``LCA2`` in their
ancestry but neither is an ancestor of the other, so we have 2 least common
ancestors. The unique common ancestor is ``BASE``. (It should be noted that in
this text we will talk directly about ``LCA1`` and ``LCA2``, but the algorithms
are designed to cope with more than 2 LCAs.)


Scalars
=======

Definition
----------

I'm defining scalar values as ones that cannot be 'merged' on their own. For
example, the name of a file is "scalar". If one person changes "foo.txt" to
"foo.c" and someone else changes "foo.txt" to "bar.txt" we don't merge the
changes to be "bar.c", we simply conflict and expect the user to sort it out.

We use a slightly different algorithm for scalars.


Resolution Algorithm
--------------------

(This can be seen as ``bzrlib.merge.Merge3Merger._lca_multi_way```

1. If ``THIS`` and ``OTHER`` have the same value, use it. There is no need to
   inspect any other values in this case. Either nothing was changed (all
   interesting nodes would have the same value), or we have "accidental
   convergence" (both sides made the same change.).

2. Find the values from ``LCA1`` and ``LCA2`` which are not the same as
   ``BASE``. The idea here is to provide a rudimentary "heads" comparison.
   Often, the whole tree graph will have a criss-cross, but the per-file
   (per-scalar) graph would be linear, and the value in one LCA strictly
   dominates the other. It is possible to construct a scenario where one side
   dominates the other, but the dominated value is not ``BASE``, but a second
   intermediate value. Most scalars are rarely changed, so this is unlikely to
   be an issue. The trade-off is having to generate and inspect the
   per-scalar graph.

   If there are no LCA values that are different from ``BASE``, we use a simple
   3-way merge with ``BASE`` as the base value.

3. Find the unique set of LCA values that do not include the ``BASE`` value.
   If there is only one unique LCA value, we again use three-way merge logic
   using that unique value as the base.

4. At this point, we have determined that we have at least 2 unique values in
   our LCAs which means that ``THIS`` and ``OTHER`` would both have to resolve
   the conflict. If they resolved it in the same way, we would have caught that
   in step 1. So they either both picked a different LCA value, or one (or
   both) chose a new value to use.

   If ``OTHER`` and ``THIS`` both picked a different LCA value, we conflict.

   If ``OTHER`` and ``THIS`` both have values that are not LCA values, we also
   conflict. (Same as 3-way, both sides modified a value in different ways.)

5. (optional) The only tricky part is this: if ``OTHER`` has a LCA value, but
   ``THIS`` does not, then we go with ``THIS``, and conversely if ``THIS`` has
   an LCA value, but ``OTHER`` does not, then we go with ``OTHER``. The idea is
   that ``THIS`` and ``OTHER`` may have resolved things in the same way, and
   then later changed the value to something newer. (They could have also
   resolved it differently, and then one side updated again.)


``InventoryEntry.revision``
---------------------------

The last-modified revision for an entry gets treated differently. This is
because how it is generated allows us to infer more information. Specifically,
any time there is a change to an entry (rename, or content change) the last
modified revision is updated. Further, if we are merging, and both sides
updated the entry, then we update the last-modified revision at the merge
point.

For a picture example::

    .   A
    .  / \
    . B   C
    .  \ /
    .   D


For a single entry, the last modified revision in ``D`` is:

1) ``A`` if neither ``B`` or ``C`` modified it
2) ``B`` if ``B`` modified and ``C`` did not
3) ``C`` if ``C`` modified and ``B`` did not
4) ``D`` if ``B`` and ``C`` modified it

This means that if the last modified revision is the same, there have been no
changes in the intermediate time. If ``OTHER`` also has the same last modified
revision as *any* LCA, then we know that all other LCAs' last-modified
revisions are in the ancestry of that value. (Otherwise, when ``OTHER`` would
need to create a new last modified revision as part of the merge.)

..
   vim: ft=rst tw=74 ai
