Is it safe to use a subversion feature branch after reintegrate-merged to trunk?

Question

Must a feature branch be deleted after it\'s merged (reintegrated) back to trunk?

I prefer to constantly merge changes back and forth from my feature branch - I beli

Answer 1

We do this often (SVN 1.5 and above). You just have to make sure not to remerge those changes back into the branch.

To do that simply do a range of revisions merge from the trunk to the branch. Specify the revision in the trunk that you did the reintegrate of the branch and mark it as "Only record the merge" from the trunk revision to the branch.

Once you do that you should be good to go.

Edit
The point the wcoenen brings up from the article about conflicts is valid. If you do not sync the trunk changes into the branch before doing the reintegrate you will have the conflict problem. We keep the branch synced up and have had no problem continuing to reuse the branch after multiple reintegrates.

Edit 2

Keeping a Reintegrated Branch Alive (http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.branchmerge.advanced.html)

There is an alternative to destroying and re-creating a branch after reintegration. To understand why it works you need to understand why the branch is initially unfit for further use after it has been reintegrated.