mergemaster clarification

[Mike Maltese]

> possible.  various sources (handbook, man page, absolute bsd, google)
indicated
> that mergemaster would compare files for differences.  it did, but it only
presented
> 4 different files.  i had the impression that mergemaster would run
through *all* the
> files in /etc.  was i wrong to expect this?

Kinda. Mergemaster will only attempt to merge files that are different from
source. Either the four files it compared were modified by you in the
configuration of your system, or they were updated in the source tree (or
both).

> my cvsup file includes this line -- *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_4_8.
if i
> understand the cvsup instructions correctly, this means i should only get
> code for security advisories and other seriously critical fixes.  the
original install

Yes.

>
> does this mean that make world only rebuilds part of the code and not the
whole
> system?  could this be why mergemaster did not ask me about all the files
in /etc?

The make buildworld process will build everything and make installworld will
replace everything (and if I'm wrong here I'm sure someone will correct me).

Hope this helps - Mike