Eclipse switching branch from branch to trunk

Question

I don't understand something that is happening on my Eclipse and I am wondering if this is my Eclipse problem or if this is actually a feature. I have a trunk and a branch. On the repository they are the same so no changes have been commited since I created the branch. After making the branch I switch on my workspace the project from trunk to branch. Then I started working and changing on the branch. Suddenly I wanted to see something on the trunk because I got lost in my changes. So I switch to the trunk. I was surprised when Eclipse did not remove my changes and it was as if no switch was made. The changes continued being there.

Is this normal? Can someone explain? Thanks, David

Answer 1

This is perfectly normal, and the way the svn switch is suppose to work.

Here's a common scenario. You're working on trunk, and realize that your changes should be applied to a branch instead. You simply do switch and you are now on a new branch and your changes are now applied to the new branch. Many times, I'll be working on one stream (a branch or trunk), and realize that my changes are too experimental and big to go into the current development stream. I'll create a new branch and switch to it.

There is no reason with gigabyte fast disks, and gigabyte networks to be skimping on working directories. I tell developers to dedicate a working directory for each project and branch. Otherwise, if they keep switching back and forth between various development streams, they're going to forget and do development in the wrong place.