On Oct 25, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Peter Wolanin wrote:

$ cvs tag DRUPAL-5 ** ERROR: invalid tag for this directory: ** contributions/modules/og_mandatory_group cvs tag: Pre-tag check failed cvs [tag aborted]: correct the above errors first!

i was *just* about to finish up the code for http://drupal.org/node/ 90969: "print better error message if user is confused about tag vs. branch"

for some of my module's i have avoided branching them until the next core is branched, and was planning to do that again. Can the DRUPAL-5 tag only be applied as a branch tag?

right. i can see why, in the old world, you might want to move a DRUPAL-5 tag around until core is branched (since the existence of that tag was the only thing that would trigger a release to get packaged for you). however: a) nothing is packaging releases from the DRUPAL-5 branch/tag now, so it doesn't really win you much right now, anyway. b) in the new system, there's no need to play this trick. you could add 5.x-1.* release tags directly on the HEAD, if you don't want to actually branch your code until the 6.0 code freeze, for example. obviously, it's nicer to play along with the rest of the kids, and make your DRUPAL-5 branch like everyone else is expecting, but that's not necessary to get your module packaged for release. since moving around the DRUPAL-5 tag doesn't buy you anything, and to help prevent confusion (since many around here still consider cvs a scary black-box they don't really understand -- i don't blame anyone, i just have a warped perspective from being the cvs guru for my day job for 10+ years), the scripts that defend the contrib repo from mistakes (or *gasp* malicous developers), are now enforcing that things like "DRUPAL-5" must really be branches, and things like "DRUPAL-5--1-0" must be tags. maybe in the next 1/2 hour or so (though it's 1am here, and i'm exhausted), if you reverse these, and use the wrong convention for a tag or a branch, the cvs tag command will fail with a more helpful message like: % cvs tag DRUPAL-5 ... ERROR: "DRUPAL-5" is a valid name for a branch, but not a tag. You must either use the -b option with your cvs tag command if you wish to create a branch, or choose a valid tag name. See http://drupal.org/ handbook/page/here for info about valid branch and tag names. just watch http://drupal.org/node/90969 for progress on this topic. enjoy, -derek