[drupal-devel] How are patches to branches handled?

[K B]

In Drupal, how are patches to branches handled?

For example, there is a DRUPAL-4-5 tag, which was done when the
repository was branched off for Drupal 4.5.0. Later, there was a
DRUPAL-4-5-1, ...etc.

Now, if someone finds a critical bug, that needs to be fixed in 4.5.1
for example, does it go to the daily build of 4.5.1? In other words,
will the tar ball for 4.5.1 before the fix (e.g. Feb 1, 2005) differ
from the 4.5.1 after the fix (e.g. Feb 2, 2005)?

If we are doing this in Drupal, then there is a serious issue: the
same release number can contain different code, which creates support
issues: a person having the 4.5.1 from Feb 1 will say they have a
problem, and another who has 4.5.1 from Feb 2 will say there is no
problem.

The obvious solution is that builds have to get a new number (e.g.
4.5.2) whenever fixes are made to a branch.

Are we sure we are not falling into this trap?

Of course, this does not apply to CVS HEAD, since by definition it is
a dynamic moving target.