• a fix must be done in 5.3 only branch, so no need to merge it up into 5.4
• next time a change must be done for all the branches according to the git workflow
• merging that last change from 5.3 into 5.4 with “git merge --no-ff --log PHP-5.3” brings the previous 5.3 only fix into 5.4 - ups that's not what i needed )

• do a 5.3 only fix
• checkout 5.4 branch
• git merge --no-ff --log --no-commit PHP-5.3
• revert the change manually and commit

What would be a better way to do this?

  git checkout PHP-5.3
  git commit
  git checkout PHP-5.4
  git merge --log --no-ff --strategy=ours PHP-5.3

--- dsp 2012/04/13 14:50

Let's say I make a change on 5.3, which includes a NEWS entry. The NEWS entry understandably conflicts when merging upwards to 5.4. How do I merge it correctly so that it doesn't cause problems for the next committer?

Furthermore, how do I deal with cases where I don't want a NEWS entry on master at all when merging there?

Try using Moving to Git FAQ. Another solution would be

  git checkout PHP-5.4
  git merge --no-commit --no-ff --log PHP-5.3
  git show PHP-5.4:NEWS > NEWS # Overview news
  git add NEWS
  git commit

--- dsp 2012/04/13 14:55