Merging from MySQL (obsolete)

Merging from MySQL into MariaDB

Merging code changes from MySQL bzr repository

We generally merge only released versions of MySQL into MariaDB trunk. This is to be able to release a well-working release of MariaDB at any time, without having to worry about including half-finished changes from MySQL. Merges of MySQL revisions in-between MySQL releases can still be done (eg. to reduce the merge task to smaller pieces), but should then be pushed to the maria-5.1-merge branch, not to the main lp:maria branch.

The merge command should thus generally be of this form:

bzr merge -rtag:mysql-<MYSQL-VERSION> lp:mysql-server/5.1

As a general rule, when the MySQL and MariaDB side has changes with the same meaning but differing text, pick the MySQL variant when resolving this conflict. This will help reduce the number of conflicts in subsequent merges.

Buildbot testing

To assist in understanding test failures that arise during the merge, we pull the same revision to be merged into the lp:maria-captains/maria/mysql-5.1-testing tree for buildbot test. This allows to check easily if any failures introduced are also present in the vanilla MySQL tree being merged.

Helpful tags and diffs

To help keep track of merges, we tag the result of a merge:

mariadb-merge-mysql-<MYSQL-VERSION>

For example, when merging MySQL 5.1.39, the commit of the merge would be tagged like this:

mariadb-merge-mysql-5.1.39

The right-hand parent of tag:mariadb-merge-mysql-5.1.39 will be the revision tag:mysql-5.1.39. The left-hand parent will be a revision on the MariaDB trunk.

When merging, these tags and associated revisions can be used to generate some diffs, which are useful when resolving conflicts. Here is a diagram of the history in a merge:

B----maria------A0-------A1
 \              /       /
  \            /       /
   ---mysql---Y0------Y1

Here,

• 'B' is the base revision when MariaDB was originally branched from MySQL.
• 'A0' is the result of the last MySQL merge, eg. tag:mariadb-merge-mysql-5.1.38.
• 'Y0' is the MySQL revision that was last merged, eg. tag:mysql-5.1.38.
• 'Y1' is the MySQL revision to be merged in the new merge, eg. tag:mysql-5.1.39.
• 'A1' is the result of committing the new merge, to be tagged as eg. tag:mariadb-merge-mysql-5.1.39.

Then, these diffs can be useful:

• 'bzr diff -rY0..before:A1' - this is the MariaDB side of changes to be merged.
• 'bzr diff -rY0..Y1' - this is the MySQL side of changes to be merged.
• 'bzr diff -rA0..before:A1' - these are the new changes on the MariaDB side to be merged; this can be useful do separate them from other MariaDB-specific changes that have already been resolved against conflicting MySQL changes.

Merging documentation from MySQL source tarballs

The documentation for MySQL is not maintained in the MySQL source bzr repository. Therefore changes to MySQL documentation needs to be merged separately.

Only some of the MySQL documentation is available under the GPL (man pages, help tables, installation instructions). Notably the MySQL manual is not available under the GPL, and so is not included in MariaDB in any form.

The man pages, help tables, and installation instruction READMEs are obtained from MySQL source tarballs and manually merged into the MariaDB source trees. The procedure for this is as follows:

There is a tree on Launchpad used for tracking merges:

lp:~maria-captains/maria/mysql-docs-merge-base

(At the time of writing, this procedure only exists for the 5.1 series of MySQL and MariaDB. Additional merge base trees will be needed for other release series.)

This tree must only be used to import new documentation files from new MySQL upstream source tarballs. The procedure to import a new set of files when a new MySQL release happens is as follows:

• Download the new MySQL source tarball and unpack it, say to mysql-5.1.38
• run these commands:

T=../mysql-5.1.38
bzr branch lp:~maria-captains/maria/mysql-docs-merge-base
cd mysql-docs-merge-base
for i in Docs/INSTALL-BINARY INSTALL-SOURCE INSTALL-WIN-SOURCE support-files/MacOSX/ReadMe.txt scripts/fill_help_tables.sql $(cd "$T" && find man -type f | grep '\.[0-9]$' | grep -v '^man/ndb_' | grep -v '^man/mysqlman.1$') ; do cp "$T/$i" $i; bzr add $i ; done
bzr commit -m"Imported MySQL documentation files from $T"
bzr push lp:~maria-captains/maria/mysql-docs-merge-base

• Now do a normal merge from lp:maria-captains/maria/mysql-docs-merge-base into lp:maria