How are deleted and renamed/moved files handled when merging a feature branch with trunk and reintegrating it back to the trunk in Subversion?

Question

I've got a big-ish project that needs a lot of work on a new feature, so I planned on using a branch to do this work. I haven't had to do this before, and I just wanted to get assurance from an experienced Subversion user that things "should" work smoothly.

What I'm especially concerned with is how well Subversion handles deleted, renamed/moved files between a branch and the trunk. That is, if multiple files are deleted or renamed/moved in the branch, but those files continue to be used and receive changes in the trunk, will merges with the trunk still proceed without a hitch (reworking the branch, of course, as necessary)?

Also, when I then reintegrate the branch with the trunk, if the files differ greatly in name (or existence) between the trunk and branch, will the reintegration be difficult? Will the files deleted (moved) in the branch now be deleted (moved) in the trunk, or will files linger and conflicts emerge?

The SVN book didn't clear up these questions for me, so your experience would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

http://markphip.blogspot.com/2006/12/subversion-moverename-feature.html

Rename is a copy / delete

If a rename happens on 1 branch, and edits on a 2nd branch, they will require a hand merge

The magic rename stuff you want to happen will NOT happen on subversion, but WILL happen in Git.