| rev |
line source |
|
bos@84
|
1 \chapter{A lightning tour of Mercurial}
|
|
bos@84
|
2 \label{chap:tour}
|
|
bos@84
|
3
|
|
bos@84
|
4 \section{Installing Mercurial on your system}
|
|
bos@84
|
5 \label{sec:tour:install}
|
|
bos@84
|
6
|
|
bos@85
|
7 Prebuilt binary packages of Mercurial are available for every popular
|
|
bos@85
|
8 operating system. These make it easy to start using Mercurial on your
|
|
bos@85
|
9 computer immediately.
|
|
bos@85
|
10
|
|
bos@84
|
11 \subsection{Linux}
|
|
bos@84
|
12
|
|
bos@84
|
13 Because each Linux distribution has its own packaging tools, policies,
|
|
bos@84
|
14 and rate of development, it's difficult to give a comprehensive set of
|
|
bos@85
|
15 instructions on how to install Mercurial binaries. The version of
|
|
bos@85
|
16 Mercurial that you will end up with can vary depending on how active
|
|
bos@85
|
17 the person is who maintains the package for your distribution.
|
|
bos@84
|
18
|
|
bos@84
|
19 To keep things simple, I will focus on installing Mercurial from the
|
|
bos@84
|
20 command line under the most popular Linux distributions. Most of
|
|
bos@84
|
21 these distributions provide graphical package managers that will let
|
|
bos@84
|
22 you install Mercurial with a single click; the package name to look
|
|
bos@84
|
23 for is \texttt{mercurial}.
|
|
bos@84
|
24
|
|
bos@85
|
25 \begin{itemize}
|
|
bos@85
|
26 \item[Debian]
|
|
bos@85
|
27 \begin{codesample4}
|
|
bos@85
|
28 apt-get install mercurial
|
|
bos@85
|
29 \end{codesample4}
|
|
bos@84
|
30
|
|
bos@85
|
31 \item[Fedora Core]
|
|
bos@85
|
32 \begin{codesample4}
|
|
bos@85
|
33 yum install mercurial
|
|
bos@85
|
34 \end{codesample4}
|
|
bos@84
|
35
|
|
bos@85
|
36 \item[Gentoo]
|
|
bos@85
|
37 \begin{codesample4}
|
|
bos@85
|
38 emerge mercurial
|
|
bos@85
|
39 \end{codesample4}
|
|
bos@84
|
40
|
|
bos@85
|
41 \item[OpenSUSE]
|
|
bos@85
|
42 \begin{codesample4}
|
|
bos@85
|
43 yum install mercurial
|
|
bos@85
|
44 \end{codesample4}
|
|
bos@84
|
45
|
|
bos@85
|
46 \item[Ubuntu] Ubuntu's Mercurial package is particularly old, and you
|
|
bos@85
|
47 should not use it. If you know how, you can rebuild and install the
|
|
bos@85
|
48 Debian package. It's probably easier to build Mercurial from source
|
|
bos@85
|
49 and simply run that; see section~\ref{sec:srcinstall:unixlike} for
|
|
bos@85
|
50 details.
|
|
bos@85
|
51 \end{itemize}
|
|
bos@84
|
52
|
|
bos@84
|
53 \subsection{Mac OS X}
|
|
bos@84
|
54
|
|
bos@84
|
55 Lee Cantey publishes an installer of Mercurial for Mac OS~X at
|
|
bos@84
|
56 \url{http://mercurial.berkwood.com}. This package works on both
|
|
bos@85
|
57 Intel-~and Power-based Macs. Before you can use it, you must install
|
|
bos@85
|
58 a compatible version of Universal MacPython~\cite{web:macpython}. This
|
|
bos@85
|
59 is easy to do; simply follow the instructions on Lee's site.
|
|
bos@84
|
60
|
|
bos@84
|
61 \subsection{Solaris}
|
|
bos@84
|
62
|
|
bos@84
|
63 XXX.
|
|
bos@84
|
64
|
|
bos@84
|
65 \subsection{Windows}
|
|
bos@84
|
66
|
|
bos@84
|
67 Lee Cantey publishes an installer of Mercurial for Windows at
|
|
bos@84
|
68 \url{http://mercurial.berkwood.com}. This package has no external
|
|
bos@84
|
69 dependencies; it ``just works''.
|
|
bos@84
|
70
|
|
bos@84
|
71 \begin{note}
|
|
bos@84
|
72 The Windows version of Mercurial does not automatically convert line
|
|
bos@84
|
73 endings between Windows and Unix styles. If you want to share work
|
|
bos@84
|
74 with Unix users, you must do a little additional configuration
|
|
bos@84
|
75 work. XXX Flesh this out.
|
|
bos@84
|
76 \end{note}
|
|
bos@84
|
77
|
|
bos@87
|
78 \section{Getting started}
|
|
bos@87
|
79
|
|
bos@87
|
80 To begin, we'll use the \hgcmd{version} command to find out whether
|
|
bos@87
|
81 Mercurial is actually installed properly. The actual version
|
|
bos@87
|
82 information that it prints isn't so important; it's whether it prints
|
|
bos@87
|
83 anything at all that we care about.
|
|
bos@87
|
84 \interaction{tour.version}
|
|
bos@87
|
85
|
|
bos@87
|
86 \subsection{Built-in help}
|
|
bos@87
|
87
|
|
bos@87
|
88 Mercurial provides a built-in help system. This invaluable for those
|
|
bos@87
|
89 times when you find yourself stuck trying to remember how to run a
|
|
bos@87
|
90 command. If you are completely stuck, simply run \hgcmd{help}; it
|
|
bos@87
|
91 will print a brief list of commands, along with a description of what
|
|
bos@87
|
92 each does. If you ask for help on a specific command (as below), it
|
|
bos@87
|
93 prints more detailed information.
|
|
bos@87
|
94 \interaction{tour.help}
|
|
bos@87
|
95 For a more impressive level of detail (which you won't usually need)
|
|
bos@87
|
96 run \hgcmdargs{help}{\hggopt{-v}}. The \hggopt{-v} option is short
|
|
bos@87
|
97 for \hggopt{--verbose}, and tells Mercurial to print more information
|
|
bos@87
|
98 than it usually would.
|
|
bos@87
|
99
|
|
bos@87
|
100 \section{Working with a repository}
|
|
bos@87
|
101
|
|
bos@87
|
102 In Mercurial, everything happens inside a \emph{repository}. The
|
|
bos@87
|
103 repository for a project contains all of the files that ``belong to''
|
|
bos@87
|
104 that project, along with a historical record of the project's files.
|
|
bos@87
|
105
|
|
bos@87
|
106 There's nothing particularly magical about a repository; it is simply
|
|
bos@87
|
107 a directory tree in your filesystem that Mercurial treats as special.
|
|
bos@87
|
108 You can rename delete a repository any time you like, using either the
|
|
bos@87
|
109 command line or your file browser.
|
|
bos@87
|
110
|
|
bos@87
|
111 \subsection{Making a copy of a repository}
|
|
bos@87
|
112
|
|
bos@87
|
113 \emph{Copying} a repository is just a little bit special. While you
|
|
bos@87
|
114 could use a normal file copying command to make a copy of a
|
|
bos@87
|
115 repository, it's best to use a built-in command that Mercurial
|
|
bos@87
|
116 provides. This command is called \hgcmd{clone}, because it creates an
|
|
bos@87
|
117 identical copy of an existing repository.
|
|
bos@87
|
118 \interaction{tour.clone}
|
|
bos@87
|
119 If our clone succeeded, we should now have a local directory called
|
|
bos@87
|
120 \dirname{hello}. This directory will contain some files.
|
|
bos@87
|
121 \interaction{tour.ls}
|
|
bos@87
|
122 These files have the same contents and history in our repository as
|
|
bos@87
|
123 they do in the repository we cloned.
|
|
bos@87
|
124
|
|
bos@87
|
125 Every Mercurial repository is complete, self-contained, and
|
|
bos@87
|
126 independent. It contains its own private copy of a project's files
|
|
bos@87
|
127 and history. A cloned repository remembers the location of the
|
|
bos@87
|
128 repository it was cloned from, but it does not communicate with that
|
|
bos@87
|
129 repository, or any other, unless you tell it to.
|
|
bos@87
|
130
|
|
bos@87
|
131 What this means for now is that we're free to experiment with our
|
|
bos@87
|
132 repository, safe in the knowledge that it's a private ``sandbox'' that
|
|
bos@87
|
133 won't affect anyone else.
|
|
bos@85
|
134
|
|
bos@84
|
135 %%% Local Variables:
|
|
bos@84
|
136 %%% mode: latex
|
|
bos@84
|
137 %%% TeX-master: "00book"
|
|
bos@84
|
138 %%% End:
|
