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1 \chapter{A tour of Mercurial: merging work}
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2 \label{chap:tour-merge}
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3
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4 We've now covered cloning a repository, making changes in a
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5 repository, and pulling or pushing changes from one repository into
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6 another. Our next step is \emph{merging} changes from separate
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7 repositories.
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8
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9 \section{Merging streams of work}
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10
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11 Merging is a fundamental part of working with a distributed revision
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12 control tool.
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13 \begin{itemize}
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14 \item Alice and Bob each have a personal copy of a repository for a
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15 project they're collaborating on. Alice fixes a bug in her
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16 repository; Bob adds a new feature in his. They want the shared
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17 repository to contain both the bug fix and the new feature.
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18 \item I frequently work on several different tasks for a single
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19 project at once, each safely isolated in its own repository.
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20 Working this way means that I often need to merge one piece of my
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21 own work with another.
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22 \end{itemize}
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23
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24 Because merging is such a common thing to need to do, Mercurial makes
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25 it easy. Let's walk through the process. We'll begin by cloning yet
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26 another repository (see how often they spring up?) and making a change
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27 in it.
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28 \interaction{tour.merge.clone}
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29 We should now have two copies of \filename{hello.c} with different
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30 contents. The histories of the two repositories have also diverged,
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31 as illustrated in figure~\ref{fig:tour-merge:sep-repos}.
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32 \interaction{tour.merge.cat}
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33
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34 \begin{figure}[ht]
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35 \centering
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36 \grafix{tour-merge-sep-repos}
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37 \caption{Divergent recent histories of the \dirname{my-hello} and
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38 \dirname{my-new-hello} repositories}
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39 \label{fig:tour-merge:sep-repos}
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40 \end{figure}
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41
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42 We already know that pulling changes from our \dirname{my-hello}
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43 repository will have no effect on the working directory.
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44 \interaction{tour.merge.pull}
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45 However, the \hgcmd{pull} command says something about ``heads''.
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46
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47 A head is a change that has no descendants, or children, as they're
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48 also known. The tip revision is thus a head, because the newest
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49 revision in a repository doesn't have any children, but a repository
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50 can contain more than one head.
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51
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52 \begin{figure}[ht]
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53 \centering
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54 \grafix{tour-merge-pull}
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55 \caption{Repository contents after pulling from \dirname{my-hello} into
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56 \dirname{my-new-hello}}
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57 \label{fig:tour-merge:pull}
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58 \end{figure}
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59
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60 In figure~\ref{fig:tour-merge:pull}, you can see the effect of the
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61 pull from \dirname{my-hello} into \dirname{my-new-hello}. The history
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62 that was already present in \dirname{my-new-hello} is untouched, but a
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63 new revision has been added. By referring to
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64 figure~\ref{fig:tour-merge:sep-repos}, we can see that the
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65 \emph{changeset ID} remains the same in the new repository, but the
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66 \emph{revision number} has changed. (This, incidentally, is a fine
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67 example of why it's not safe to use revision numbers when discussing
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68 changesets.) We can view the heads in a repository using the
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69 \hgcmd{heads} command.
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70 \interaction{tour.merge.heads}
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71 What happens if we try to use the normal \hgcmd{update} command to
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72 update to the new tip?
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73 \interaction{tour.merge.update}
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74 Mercurial is telling us that the \hgcmd{update} command won't do a
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75 merge; it won't update the working directory when it thinks we might
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76 be wanting to do a merge, unless we force it to do so. Instead, we
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77 use the \hgcmd{merge} command to merge the two heads.
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78 \interaction{tour.merge.merge}
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79
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80 \begin{figure}[ht]
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81 \centering
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82 \grafix{tour-merge-merge}
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83 \caption{Working directory and repository during merge, and
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84 following commit}
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85 \label{fig:tour-merge:merge}
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86 \end{figure}
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87
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88 This updates the working directory so that it contains changes from
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89 \emph{both} heads, which is reflected in both the output of
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90 \hgcmd{parents} and the contents of \filename{hello.c}.
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91 \interaction{tour.merge.parents}
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92 Whenever we've done a merge, \hgcmd{parents} will display two parents
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93 until we \hgcmd{commit} the results of the merge.
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94 \interaction{tour.merge.commit}
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95 We now have a new tip revision; notice that it has \emph{both} of
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96 our former heads as its parents. These are the same revisions that
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97 were previously displayed by \hgcmd{parents}.
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98 \interaction{tour.merge.tip}
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99 In figure~\ref{fig:tour-merge:merge}, you can see a representation of
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100 what happens to the working directory during the merge, and how this
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101 affects the repository when the commit happens. During the merge, the
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102 working directory has two parent changesets, and these become the
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103 parents of the new changeset.
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104
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105 %%% Local Variables:
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106 %%% mode: latex
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107 %%% TeX-master: "00book"
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108 %%% End:
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