With classes and with rules, multiple XML files get merged into one resulting XML file. This process of merging is often confusing for people, because it behaves different than one would expect.

For example, the following two XML parts should be merged:

<partitioning config:type="list">
    <drive>
        <partitions config:type="list">
            <partition>
                <filesystem config:type="symbol">swap</filesystem>
                <format config:type="boolean">true</format>
                <mount>swap</mount>
                <partition_id config:type="integer">130</partition_id>
                <size>2000mb</size>
            </partition>
            <partition>
                <filesystem config:type="symbol">xfs</filesystem>
                <partition_type>primary</partition_type>
                <size>4Gb</size>
                <mount>/data</mount>
            </partition>
        </partitions>
    </drive>
</partitioning>

<partitioning config:type="list">
  <drive>
    <initialize config:type="boolean">false</initialize>
    <partitions config:type="list">
         <partition>
           <format config:type="boolean">true</format>
           <filesystem config:type="symbol">xfs</filesystem>
           <mount>/</mount>
           <partition_id config:type="integer">131</partition_id>
           <partition_type>primary</partition_type>
           <size>max</size>
         </partition>
    </partitions>
    <use>all</use>
  </drive>
</partitioning>

You might expect the profile to contain 3 partitions. This is not the case. You'll end up with two partitions and the first partition is a mixup of the swap and the root partition. Settings configured in both partitions, like mount or size, will be used from the second file. Settings that only exist in the first or second partition, will be copied to the merged partition too.

In this example, you do not want a second drive. The two drives should be merged into one. With regard to partitions, three separate ones should be defined.

	Workaround for SLES9/SL 10.0 and earlier
	The following workaround only works for SLES9/SL 10.0 and earlier versions.

The following method is not officially supported by AutoYaST. For each partition in one file, add an attribute to the partition:

<partition dontmerge="1">
...
</partitions>

Because of the new attribute, the merge script will not detect the partitions as the same element type. If you have more files, you may need to add more attributes like dontmerge="2", etc.

	Solution for SLES 10/SL 10.1 and later
	The following method solves the merging problem for SLES10, SUSE Linux 10.1 and later versions.

Use the dont_merge element in the rules or class file:

<classes config:type="list">
    <class>
        <class_name>swap</class_name>
        <configuration>largeswap.xml</configuration>
        <dont_merge config:type="list">
            <element>partition</element>
        </dont_merge>
    </class>
</classes>

<rule>
    <board_vendor>
        <match>ntel</match>
        <match_type>regex</match_type>
    </board_vendor>
    <result>
        <profile>classes/largeswap.xml</profile>
        <continue config:type="boolean">true</continue>
        <dont_merge config:type="list">
          <element>partition</element>
        </dont_merge>
    </result>
    <board_vendor>
        <match>PowerEdge [12]850</match>
        <match_type>regex</match_type>
    </board_vendor>
    <result>
        <profile>classes/smallswap.xml</profile>
        <continue config:type="boolean">true</continue>
        <dont_merge config:type="list">
          <element>partition</element>
        </dont_merge>
    </result>
</rule>