elmentary (watson): merge (named) branches and/or bookmarks

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Bob Hood writes:

> On 12/18/2016 2:57 AM, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>> Bob Hood writes:
>>> On 12/17/2016 2:56 AM, Uwe Brauer wrote:
>>>> Sorry for such an elementary question again, but bookmarks drive my
>>>> crazy.
>>> Coming from Subversion, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the paradigm
>>> as well, until I realized one day that named branches in Mercurial are just
>>> /permanent bookmarks/. Like regular bookmarks, they automatically follow a
>>> head as commits are made, but the head they are tracking is /just never meant
>>> to be merged back into their parent branch/--hence,
>> What do you mean by that?
>>
>> It’s regular usage to merge a branch back into the parent branch.
>
>
> Of course. If my understanding is correct, bookmarks (and named branches) just 
> track /logical/ branch points (separate heads).
>
> Here's the model that we use:  Developers work in a sandboxed named branch (a 
> /permanently//separate/ head of development), which mirrors the main branch, 
> and then builds from those isolated named branches are exposed to testing.  
> When testing approves, the developer merges their work into the main branch, 
> however, the separate head, like the bookmark tracking it /never goes away/.  
> Hence, the permanently separate head, in the guise of the named branch, never 
> terminates when it is merged back to the main branch.
>
> As I understand it, this is not true for a regular bookmark.  They can be 
> removed, and hence the /logical/ branch they are tracking is terminated when 
> the heads are merged, e.g.:

So what you mean by branch is "the information that there are different
tracks of development"?

You can remove that by explicitly closing the branch:

  $ hg commit --close-branch -m "MESSAGE"

Then the branch becomes inactive. The information is still in history
but not visible in `hg branches` or `hg heads`.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 800 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.mercurial-scm.org/pipermail/mercurial/attachments/20161218/6f16a341/attachment.asc>