Use of named branches

[Daniel Holth]

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Sebastien Lucas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First some background, I have happily used Subversion for 2 years at
> work and I think I learned how to use it right. I'm currently
> reviewing mercurial for my personal needs. I'm using 0.9.3 on debian.
>
> Coming from subversion, I'm used to have a trunk (where the main
> developpement take place) and my branches in the same repository. I
> know that's the prefered way is to use hg clone to create a branch but
> I'd prefer to use named branches to keep everything (trunk and dev
> branches) in the same repository.
>
> I made some experiment last night :
>
....
>
> I really feel I have missed something (or everything). Can anybody
> enlight me on a proper use of named branches ?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Sebastien

It really helps to see a graph of the history. Here is a graph of your
first example, produced by the graphlog extension:

hg glog

@    changeset:   3:5b6296f3a53e
|\   branch:      trunk
| |  tag:         tip
| |  parent:      2:1d83dd56f1bb
| |  parent:      1:735f6ca138b0
| |  summary:     merge
| |
| o  changeset:   2:1d83dd56f1bb
| |  branch:      trunk
| |  parent:      0:b9d86061fb9e
| |  summary:     commit to trunk again
| |
o |  changeset:   1:735f6ca138b0
|/   branch:      seb-dev
|    summary:     commit to seb-dev
|
o  changeset:   0:b9d86061fb9e
   branch:      trunk
   summary:     commit to trunk

Here is your second example:

hg glog

o  changeset:   1:9a534b2e2d3b
|  branch:      seb-dev
|  tag:         tip
|  summary:     commit to seb-dev
|
@  changeset:   0:f057905ed14e
   branch:      trunk
   summary:     commit to trunk


In the second example, it is impossible to merge with trunk, because
seb-dev is directly descended from trunk and there is no diverging
change. I can create my own idea of what should come after trunk:

touch b.txt
hg add b.txt
hg commit

Creating:

hg glog

@  changeset:   2:d02f1d650c2f
|  branch:      trunk
|  tag:         tip
|  parent:      0:f057905ed14e
|  summary:     add b
|
| o  changeset:   1:9a534b2e2d3b
|/   branch:      seb-dev
|    summary:     commit to seb-dev
|
o  changeset:   0:f057905ed14e
   branch:      trunk
   summary:     commit to trunk


Now there is a structural branch in our revision history. It now
possible to merge revision 1 into revision 2.

hg merge
hg commit

hg glog

@    changeset:   3:e1bbc47eb8eb
|\   branch:      trunk
| |  tag:         tip
| |  parent:      2:d02f1d650c2f
| |  parent:      1:9a534b2e2d3b
| |  summary:     merge
| |
| o  changeset:   2:d02f1d650c2f
| |  branch:      trunk
| |  parent:      0:f057905ed14e
| |  summary:     add b
| |
o |  changeset:   1:9a534b2e2d3b
|/   branch:      seb-dev
|    summary:     commit to seb-dev
|
o  changeset:   0:f057905ed14e
   branch:      trunk
   summary:     commit to trunk


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