svn merge w/ exceptions..

[Nathan Nobbe <qu...@gmail.com>]

hi all,

im just now getting into merging one branch into another and could use a
little guidance.  heres my scenario, i have 2 branches off of trunk.  i have
made changes in both of the branches.  the top-most directory in the
branches is a directory, 'code'.  i would like to use the code directory to
specify the merging of one entire branch into the other, without having to
separately run a merge for each sub-directory.

so the thing is, in the target branch a directory which still has files in
the source branch has been replaced by a soft link.  so now, when i want to
merge this particular directory, the merge stops mid-way w/ the following:

svn: Can't replace 'sentinel_v1.3/code/db' with a node of a differing type;
commit the deletion, update the parent, and then add 'sentinel_v1.3/code/db'

i understand the message, but in the result of the merge, for this directory
i want to keep the changes from the target branch and not overwrite from the
source branch.  basically, i only want changes from the source branch to be
applied to the target branch.  if there is something we changed in the
target branch, then i want those to be preserved.

is this something where ill have to end up running merges for particular
sub-directories, or is there a better way to achieve what i want in this
case?

thanks,

-nathan