Tim Rupp schrieb: > I have a piece of software that has default and local configuration > files. The default files ship with the tarball. The local files are > copied over from the default folder during installation and can be > modified for a particular install. This is how *I* would organize it, but it is a bit overengineered if the changes needed in the configuration are only minimal: ---o--o--X1--o--o--X2--o master (aka upstream) \ \ \ R-----M1------------M3 rename \ \ \ Y-----M2------------M4 production We need two branches in addition to master, which tracks upstream version. 1. The first branch *renames* the example configuration to the effective configuration: git mv foo.conf.example foo.conf # commit R git commit -m "Use the example configuration" It is important that *no change* is made to the configuration file, and it furthermore assumes that the production configuration (foo.conf) does not exist [*]. The point of this commit is that git can determine that the file was renamed with 100% similarity. 2. The second branch is actually where the customization happens, this is commit Y: git checkout production edit foo.conf # commit Y git commit -m "configuration changes needed in production" Assume, upstream made changes to the configuration (commit X1). These changes are merged in the following way: 1. git checkout rename && git merge master This creates M1. git detects that on our side the file was renamed, and merges the upstream changes into the renamed file. Since we didn't modify the file in R, there are no conflicts. 2. git checkout production && git merge rename This creates M2. This is a regular merge that integrates upstream changes with the local changes made in Y, possibly with conflicts. You repeat the procedure when upstream makes more changes to the example configuration in X2. This time, git merge again detects that the file was renamed with 100% similarity, and things work just like with M1 and M2. [*] If there is a configuration file in addition to the example configuration, another branch is needed that removes it. -- Hannes -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html