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1 <!-- vim: set filetype=docbkxml shiftwidth=2 autoindent expandtab tw=77 : -->
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2
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3 <chapter id="chap:branch">
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4 <?dbhtml filename="managing-releases-and-branchy-development.html"?>
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5 <title>Managing releases and branchy development</title>
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6
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7 <para>Mercurial provides several mechanisms for you to manage a
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8 project that is making progress on multiple fronts at once. To
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9 understand these mechanisms, let's first take a brief look at a
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10 fairly normal software project structure.</para>
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11
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12 <para>Many software projects issue periodic <quote>major</quote>
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13 releases that contain substantial new features. In parallel, they
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14 may issue <quote>minor</quote> releases. These are usually
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15 identical to the major releases off which they're based, but with
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16 a few bugs fixed.</para>
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17
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18 <para>In this chapter, we'll start by talking about how to keep
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19 records of project milestones such as releases. We'll then
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20 continue on to talk about the flow of work between different
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21 phases of a project, and how Mercurial can help you to isolate and
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22 manage this work.</para>
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23
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24 <sect1>
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25 <title>Giving a persistent name to a revision</title>
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26
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27 <para>Once you decide that you'd like to call a particular
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28 revision a <quote>release</quote>, it's a good idea to record
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29 the identity of that revision. This will let you reproduce that
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30 release at a later date, for whatever purpose you might need at
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31 the time (reproducing a bug, porting to a new platform, etc).
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32 &interaction.tag.init;</para>
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33
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34 <para>Mercurial lets you give a permanent name to any revision
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35 using the <command role="hg-cmd">hg tag</command> command. Not
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36 surprisingly, these names are called <quote>tags</quote>.</para>
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37
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38 &interaction.tag.tag;
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39
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40 <para>A tag is nothing more than a <quote>symbolic name</quote>
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41 for a revision. Tags exist purely for your convenience, so that
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42 you have a handy permanent way to refer to a revision; Mercurial
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43 doesn't interpret the tag names you use in any way. Neither
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44 does Mercurial place any restrictions on the name of a tag,
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45 beyond a few that are necessary to ensure that a tag can be
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46 parsed unambiguously. A tag name cannot contain any of the
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47 following characters:</para>
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48 <itemizedlist>
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49 <listitem><para>Colon (ASCII 58,
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50 <quote><literal>:</literal></quote>)</para>
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51 </listitem>
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52 <listitem><para>Carriage return (ASCII 13,
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53 <quote><literal>\r</literal></quote>)</para>
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54 </listitem>
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55 <listitem><para>Newline (ASCII 10,
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56 <quote><literal>\n</literal></quote>)</para>
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57 </listitem></itemizedlist>
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58
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59 <para>You can use the <command role="hg-cmd">hg tags</command>
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60 command to display the tags present in your repository. In the
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61 output, each tagged revision is identified first by its name,
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62 then by revision number, and finally by the unique hash of the
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63 revision.</para>
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64
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65 &interaction.tag.tags;
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66
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67 <para>Notice that <literal>tip</literal> is listed in the output
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68 of <command role="hg-cmd">hg tags</command>. The
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69 <literal>tip</literal> tag is a special <quote>floating</quote>
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70 tag, which always identifies the newest revision in the
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71 repository.</para>
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72
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73 <para>In the output of the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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74 tags</command> command, tags are listed in reverse order, by
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75 revision number. This usually means that recent tags are listed
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76 before older tags. It also means that <literal>tip</literal> is
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77 always going to be the first tag listed in the output of
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78 <command role="hg-cmd">hg tags</command>.</para>
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79
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80 <para>When you run <command role="hg-cmd">hg log</command>, if it
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81 displays a revision that has tags associated with it, it will
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82 print those tags.</para>
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83
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84 &interaction.tag.log;
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85
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86 <para>Any time you need to provide a revision ID to a Mercurial
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87 command, the command will accept a tag name in its place.
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88 Internally, Mercurial will translate your tag name into the
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89 corresponding revision ID, then use that.</para>
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90
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91 &interaction.tag.log.v1.0;
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92
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93 <para>There's no limit on the number of tags you can have in a
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94 repository, or on the number of tags that a single revision can
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95 have. As a practical matter, it's not a great idea to have
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96 <quote>too many</quote> (a number which will vary from project
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97 to project), simply because tags are supposed to help you to
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98 find revisions. If you have lots of tags, the ease of using
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99 them to identify revisions diminishes rapidly.</para>
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100
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101 <para>For example, if your project has milestones as frequent as
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102 every few days, it's perfectly reasonable to tag each one of
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103 those. But if you have a continuous build system that makes
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104 sure every revision can be built cleanly, you'd be introducing a
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105 lot of noise if you were to tag every clean build. Instead, you
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106 could tag failed builds (on the assumption that they're rare!),
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107 or simply not use tags to track buildability.</para>
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108
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109 <para>If you want to remove a tag that you no longer want, use
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110 <command role="hg-cmd">hg tag --remove</command>.</para>
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111
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112 &interaction.tag.remove;
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113
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114 <para>You can also modify a tag at any time, so that it identifies
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115 a different revision, by simply issuing a new <command
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116 role="hg-cmd">hg tag</command> command. You'll have to use the
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117 <option role="hg-opt-tag">-f</option> option to tell Mercurial
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118 that you <emphasis>really</emphasis> want to update the
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119 tag.</para>
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120
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121 &interaction.tag.replace;
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122
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123 <para>There will still be a permanent record of the previous
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124 identity of the tag, but Mercurial will no longer use it.
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125 There's thus no penalty to tagging the wrong revision; all you
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126 have to do is turn around and tag the correct revision once you
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127 discover your error.</para>
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128
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129 <para>Mercurial stores tags in a normal revision-controlled file
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130 in your repository. If you've created any tags, you'll find
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131 them in a file named <filename
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132 role="special">.hgtags</filename>. When you run the <command
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133 role="hg-cmd">hg tag</command> command, Mercurial modifies
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134 this file, then automatically commits the change to it. This
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135 means that every time you run <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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136 tag</command>, you'll see a corresponding changeset in the
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137 output of <command role="hg-cmd">hg log</command>.</para>
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138
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139 &interaction.tag.tip;
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140
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141 <sect2>
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142 <title>Handling tag conflicts during a merge</title>
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143
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144 <para>You won't often need to care about the <filename
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145 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file, but it sometimes
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146 makes its presence known during a merge. The format of the
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147 file is simple: it consists of a series of lines. Each line
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148 starts with a changeset hash, followed by a space, followed by
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149 the name of a tag.</para>
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150
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151 <para>If you're resolving a conflict in the <filename
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152 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file during a merge,
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153 there's one twist to modifying the <filename
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154 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file: when Mercurial is
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155 parsing the tags in a repository, it
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156 <emphasis>never</emphasis> reads the working copy of the
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157 <filename role="special">.hgtags</filename> file. Instead, it
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158 reads the <emphasis>most recently committed</emphasis>
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159 revision of the file.</para>
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160
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161 <para>An unfortunate consequence of this design is that you
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162 can't actually verify that your merged <filename
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163 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file is correct until
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164 <emphasis>after</emphasis> you've committed a change. So if
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165 you find yourself resolving a conflict on <filename
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166 role="special">.hgtags</filename> during a merge, be sure to
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167 run <command role="hg-cmd">hg tags</command> after you commit.
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168 If it finds an error in the <filename
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169 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file, it will report the
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170 location of the error, which you can then fix and commit. You
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171 should then run <command role="hg-cmd">hg tags</command>
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172 again, just to be sure that your fix is correct.</para>
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173
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174 </sect2>
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175 <sect2>
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176 <title>Tags and cloning</title>
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177
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178 <para>You may have noticed that the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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179 clone</command> command has a <option
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180 role="hg-opt-clone">-r</option> option that lets you clone
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181 an exact copy of the repository as of a particular changeset.
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182 The new clone will not contain any project history that comes
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183 after the revision you specified. This has an interaction
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184 with tags that can surprise the unwary.</para>
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185
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186 <para>Recall that a tag is stored as a revision to the <filename
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187 role="special">.hgtags</filename> file, so that when you
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188 create a tag, the changeset in which it's recorded necessarily
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189 refers to an older changeset. When you run <command
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190 role="hg-cmd">hg clone -r foo</command> to clone a
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191 repository as of tag <literal>foo</literal>, the new clone
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192 <emphasis>will not contain the history that created the
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193 tag</emphasis> that you used to clone the repository. The
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194 result is that you'll get exactly the right subset of the
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195 project's history in the new repository, but
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196 <emphasis>not</emphasis> the tag you might have
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197 expected.</para>
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198
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199 </sect2>
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200 <sect2>
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201 <title>When permanent tags are too much</title>
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202
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203 <para>Since Mercurial's tags are revision controlled and carried
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204 around with a project's history, everyone you work with will
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205 see the tags you create. But giving names to revisions has
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206 uses beyond simply noting that revision
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207 <literal>4237e45506ee</literal> is really
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208 <literal>v2.0.2</literal>. If you're trying to track down a
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209 subtle bug, you might want a tag to remind you of something
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210 like <quote>Anne saw the symptoms with this
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211 revision</quote>.</para>
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212
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213 <para>For cases like this, what you might want to use are
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214 <emphasis>local</emphasis> tags. You can create a local tag
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215 with the <option role="hg-opt-tag">-l</option> option to the
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216 <command role="hg-cmd">hg tag</command> command. This will
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217 store the tag in a file called <filename
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218 role="special">.hg/localtags</filename>. Unlike <filename
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219 role="special">.hgtags</filename>, <filename
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220 role="special">.hg/localtags</filename> is not revision
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221 controlled. Any tags you create using <option
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222 role="hg-opt-tag">-l</option> remain strictly local to the
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223 repository you're currently working in.</para>
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224
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225 </sect2>
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226 </sect1>
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227 <sect1>
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228 <title>The flow of changes&emdash;big picture vs. little</title>
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229
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230 <para>To return to the outline I sketched at the beginning of a
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231 chapter, let's think about a project that has multiple
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232 concurrent pieces of work under development at once.</para>
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233
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234 <para>There might be a push for a new <quote>main</quote> release;
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235 a new minor bugfix release to the last main release; and an
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236 unexpected <quote>hot fix</quote> to an old release that is now
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237 in maintenance mode.</para>
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238
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239 <para>The usual way people refer to these different concurrent
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240 directions of development is as <quote>branches</quote>.
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241 However, we've already seen numerous times that Mercurial treats
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242 <emphasis>all of history</emphasis> as a series of branches and
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243 merges. Really, what we have here is two ideas that are
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244 peripherally related, but which happen to share a name.</para>
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245 <itemizedlist>
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246 <listitem><para><quote>Big picture</quote> branches represent
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247 the sweep of a project's evolution; people give them names,
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248 and talk about them in conversation.</para>
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249 </listitem>
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250 <listitem><para><quote>Little picture</quote> branches are
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251 artefacts of the day-to-day activity of developing and
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252 merging changes. They expose the narrative of how the code
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253 was developed.</para>
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254 </listitem></itemizedlist>
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255
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256 </sect1>
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257 <sect1>
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258 <title>Managing big-picture branches in repositories</title>
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259
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260 <para>The easiest way to isolate a <quote>big picture</quote>
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261 branch in Mercurial is in a dedicated repository. If you have
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262 an existing shared repository&emdash;let's call it
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263 <literal>myproject</literal>&emdash;that reaches a
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264 <quote>1.0</quote> milestone, you can start to prepare for
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265 future maintenance releases on top of version 1.0 by tagging the
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266 revision from which you prepared the 1.0 release.</para>
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267
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268 &interaction.branch-repo.tag;
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269
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270 <para>You can then clone a new shared
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271 <literal>myproject-1.0.1</literal> repository as of that
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272 tag.</para>
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273
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274 &interaction.branch-repo.clone;
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275
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276 <para>Afterwards, if someone needs to work on a bug fix that ought
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277 to go into an upcoming 1.0.1 minor release, they clone the
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278 <literal>myproject-1.0.1</literal> repository, make their
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279 changes, and push them back.</para>
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280
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281 &interaction.branch-repo.bugfix;
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282
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283 <para>Meanwhile, development for
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284 the next major release can continue, isolated and unabated, in
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285 the <literal>myproject</literal> repository.</para>
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286
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287 &interaction.branch-repo.new;
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288
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289 </sect1>
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290 <sect1>
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291 <title>Don't repeat yourself: merging across branches</title>
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292
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293 <para>In many cases, if you have a bug to fix on a maintenance
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294 branch, the chances are good that the bug exists on your
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295 project's main branch (and possibly other maintenance branches,
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296 too). It's a rare developer who wants to fix the same bug
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297 multiple times, so let's look at a few ways that Mercurial can
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298 help you to manage these bugfixes without duplicating your
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299 work.</para>
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300
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301 <para>In the simplest instance, all you need to do is pull changes
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302 from your maintenance branch into your local clone of the target
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303 branch.</para>
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304
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305 &interaction.branch-repo.pull;
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306
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307 <para>You'll then need to merge the heads of the two branches, and
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308 push back to the main branch.</para>
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309
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310 &interaction.branch-repo.merge;
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311
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312 </sect1>
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313 <sect1>
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314 <title>Naming branches within one repository</title>
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315
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316 <para>In most instances, isolating branches in repositories is the
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317 right approach. Its simplicity makes it easy to understand; and
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318 so it's hard to make mistakes. There's a one-to-one
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319 relationship between branches you're working in and directories
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320 on your system. This lets you use normal (non-Mercurial-aware)
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321 tools to work on files within a branch/repository.</para>
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322
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323 <para>If you're more in the <quote>power user</quote> category
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324 (<emphasis>and</emphasis> your collaborators are too), there is
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325 an alternative way of handling branches that you can consider.
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326 I've already mentioned the human-level distinction between
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327 <quote>small picture</quote> and <quote>big picture</quote>
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328 branches. While Mercurial works with multiple <quote>small
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329 picture</quote> branches in a repository all the time (for
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330 example after you pull changes in, but before you merge them),
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331 it can <emphasis>also</emphasis> work with multiple <quote>big
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332 picture</quote> branches.</para>
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333
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334 <para>The key to working this way is that Mercurial lets you
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335 assign a persistent <emphasis>name</emphasis> to a branch.
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336 There always exists a branch named <literal>default</literal>.
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337 Even before you start naming branches yourself, you can find
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338 traces of the <literal>default</literal> branch if you look for
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339 them.</para>
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340
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341 <para>As an example, when you run the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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342 commit</command> command, and it pops up your editor so that
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343 you can enter a commit message, look for a line that contains
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344 the text <quote><literal>HG: branch default</literal></quote> at
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345 the bottom. This is telling you that your commit will occur on
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346 the branch named <literal>default</literal>.</para>
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347
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348 <para>To start working with named branches, use the <command
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349 role="hg-cmd">hg branches</command> command. This command
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350 lists the named branches already present in your repository,
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351 telling you which changeset is the tip of each.</para>
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352
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353 &interaction.branch-named.branches;
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354
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355 <para>Since you haven't created any named branches yet, the only
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356 one that exists is <literal>default</literal>.</para>
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357
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358 <para>To find out what the <quote>current</quote> branch is, run
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359 the <command role="hg-cmd">hg branch</command> command, giving
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360 it no arguments. This tells you what branch the parent of the
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361 current changeset is on.</para>
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362
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363 &interaction.branch-named.branch;
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364
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365 <para>To create a new branch, run the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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366 branch</command> command again. This time, give it one
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367 argument: the name of the branch you want to create.</para>
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368
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369 &interaction.branch-named.create;
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370
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371 <para>After you've created a branch, you might wonder what effect
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372 the <command role="hg-cmd">hg branch</command> command has had.
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373 What do the <command role="hg-cmd">hg status</command> and
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374 <command role="hg-cmd">hg tip</command> commands report?</para>
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375
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376 &interaction.branch-named.status;
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377
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378 <para>Nothing has changed in the
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379 working directory, and there's been no new history created. As
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380 this suggests, running the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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381 branch</command> command has no permanent effect; it only
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382 tells Mercurial what branch name to use the
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383 <emphasis>next</emphasis> time you commit a changeset.</para>
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384
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385 <para>When you commit a change, Mercurial records the name of the
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386 branch on which you committed. Once you've switched from the
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387 <literal>default</literal> branch to another and committed,
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388 you'll see the name of the new branch show up in the output of
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389 <command role="hg-cmd">hg log</command>, <command
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390 role="hg-cmd">hg tip</command>, and other commands that
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391 display the same kind of output.</para>
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392
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393 &interaction.branch-named.commit;
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394
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395 <para>The <command role="hg-cmd">hg log</command>-like commands
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396 will print the branch name of every changeset that's not on the
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397 <literal>default</literal> branch. As a result, if you never
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398 use named branches, you'll never see this information.</para>
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399
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400 <para>Once you've named a branch and committed a change with that
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401 name, every subsequent commit that descends from that change
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402 will inherit the same branch name. You can change the name of a
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403 branch at any time, using the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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404 branch</command> command.</para>
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405
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406 &interaction.branch-named.rebranch;
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407
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408 <para>In practice, this is something you won't do very often, as
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409 branch names tend to have fairly long lifetimes. (This isn't a
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410 rule, just an observation.)</para>
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411
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412 </sect1>
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413 <sect1>
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414 <title>Dealing with multiple named branches in a
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415 repository</title>
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416
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417 <para>If you have more than one named branch in a repository,
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418 Mercurial will remember the branch that your working directory
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419 on when you start a command like <command role="hg-cmd">hg
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420 update</command> or <command role="hg-cmd">hg pull
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421 -u</command>. It will update the working directory to the tip
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422 of this branch, no matter what the <quote>repo-wide</quote> tip
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423 is. To update to a revision that's on a different named branch,
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424 you may need to use the <option role="hg-opt-update">-C</option>
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425 option to <command role="hg-cmd">hg update</command>.</para>
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426
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427 <para>This behaviour is a little subtle, so let's see it in
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428 action. First, let's remind ourselves what branch we're
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429 currently on, and what branches are in our repository.</para>
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430
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431 &interaction.branch-named.parents;
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432
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433 <para>We're on the <literal>bar</literal> branch, but there also
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434 exists an older <command role="hg-cmd">hg foo</command>
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435 branch.</para>
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436
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437 <para>We can <command role="hg-cmd">hg update</command> back and
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438 forth between the tips of the <literal>foo</literal> and
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|
439 <literal>bar</literal> branches without needing to use the
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440 <option role="hg-opt-update">-C</option> option, because this
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441 only involves going backwards and forwards linearly through our
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442 change history.</para>
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443
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444 &interaction.branch-named.update-switchy;
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445
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bos@559
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446 <para>If we go back to the <literal>foo</literal> branch and then
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447 run <command role="hg-cmd">hg update</command>, it will keep us
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|
448 on <literal>foo</literal>, not move us to the tip of
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449 <literal>bar</literal>.</para>
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450
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451 &interaction.branch-named.update-nothing;
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452
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453 <para>Committing a new change on the <literal>foo</literal> branch
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454 introduces a new head.</para>
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455
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456 &interaction.branch-named.foo-commit;
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457
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458 </sect1>
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bos@559
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459 <sect1>
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bos@559
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460 <title>Branch names and merging</title>
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461
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462 <para>As you've probably noticed, merges in Mercurial are not
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|
463 symmetrical. Let's say our repository has two heads, 17 and 23.
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|
464 If I <command role="hg-cmd">hg update</command> to 17 and then
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|
465 <command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command> with 23, Mercurial
|
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|
466 records 17 as the first parent of the merge, and 23 as the
|
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|
467 second. Whereas if I <command role="hg-cmd">hg update</command>
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|
468 to 23 and then <command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command> with
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|
469 17, it records 23 as the first parent, and 17 as the
|
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|
470 second.</para>
|
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|
471
|
bos@559
|
472 <para>This affects Mercurial's choice of branch name when you
|
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|
473 merge. After a merge, Mercurial will retain the branch name of
|
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|
474 the first parent when you commit the result of the merge. If
|
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|
475 your first parent's branch name is <literal>foo</literal>, and
|
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|
476 you merge with <literal>bar</literal>, the branch name will
|
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|
477 still be <literal>foo</literal> after you merge.</para>
|
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|
478
|
bos@559
|
479 <para>It's not unusual for a repository to contain multiple heads,
|
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|
480 each with the same branch name. Let's say I'm working on the
|
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|
481 <literal>foo</literal> branch, and so are you. We commit
|
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|
482 different changes; I pull your changes; I now have two heads,
|
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|
483 each claiming to be on the <literal>foo</literal> branch. The
|
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|
484 result of a merge will be a single head on the
|
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|
485 <literal>foo</literal> branch, as you might hope.</para>
|
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|
486
|
bos@559
|
487 <para>But if I'm working on the <literal>bar</literal> branch, and
|
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|
488 I merge work from the <literal>foo</literal> branch, the result
|
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|
489 will remain on the <literal>bar</literal> branch.</para>
|
bos@567
|
490
|
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|
491 &interaction.branch-named.merge;
|
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|
492
|
bos@559
|
493 <para>To give a more concrete example, if I'm working on the
|
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|
494 <literal>bleeding-edge</literal> branch, and I want to bring in
|
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|
495 the latest fixes from the <literal>stable</literal> branch,
|
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|
496 Mercurial will choose the <quote>right</quote>
|
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|
497 (<literal>bleeding-edge</literal>) branch name when I pull and
|
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|
498 merge from <literal>stable</literal>.</para>
|
bos@559
|
499
|
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|
500 </sect1>
|
bos@559
|
501 <sect1>
|
bos@559
|
502 <title>Branch naming is generally useful</title>
|
bos@559
|
503
|
bos@559
|
504 <para>You shouldn't think of named branches as applicable only to
|
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|
505 situations where you have multiple long-lived branches
|
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|
506 cohabiting in a single repository. They're very useful even in
|
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|
507 the one-branch-per-repository case.</para>
|
bos@559
|
508
|
bos@559
|
509 <para>In the simplest case, giving a name to each branch gives you
|
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|
510 a permanent record of which branch a changeset originated on.
|
bos@559
|
511 This gives you more context when you're trying to follow the
|
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|
512 history of a long-lived branchy project.</para>
|
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|
513
|
bos@559
|
514 <para>If you're working with shared repositories, you can set up a
|
bos@559
|
515 <literal role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> hook on each
|
bos@559
|
516 that will block incoming changes that have the
|
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|
517 <quote>wrong</quote> branch name. This provides a simple, but
|
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|
518 effective, defence against people accidentally pushing changes
|
bos@559
|
519 from a <quote>bleeding edge</quote> branch to a
|
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|
520 <quote>stable</quote> branch. Such a hook might look like this
|
bos@559
|
521 inside the shared repo's <filename role="special">
|
bos@559
|
522 /.hgrc</filename>.</para>
|
bos@559
|
523 <programlisting>[hooks] pretxnchangegroup.branch = hg heads
|
bos@559
|
524 --template '{branches} ' | grep mybranch</programlisting>
|
bos@559
|
525
|
bos@559
|
526 </sect1>
|
bos@559
|
527 </chapter>
|
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|
528
|
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|
529 <!--
|
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|
530 local variables:
|
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|
531 sgml-parent-document: ("00book.xml" "book" "chapter")
|
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532 end:
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533 -->
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