Ancestor
Any changeset that can be reached by an unbroken chain of
parent changesets from a given changeset. More precisely,
the ancestors of a changeset can be defined by two
properties: a parent of a changeset is an ancestor, and a
parent of an ancestor is an ancestor. See also:
'Descendant'.
Bookmark
Bookmarks are pointers to certain commits that move when
committing. They are similar to tags in that it is
possible to use bookmark names in all places where
Mercurial expects a changeset ID, e.g., with hg update.
Unlike tags, bookmarks move along when you make a commit.
Bookmarks can be renamed, copied and deleted. Bookmarks
are local, unless they are explicitly pushed or pulled
between repositories. Pushing and pulling bookmarks allow
you to collaborate with others on a branch without
creating a named branch.
Branch (Noun) A child changeset that has been created from a
parent that is not a head. These are known as topological
branches, see 'Branch, topological'. If a topological
branch is named, it becomes a named branch. If a
topological branch is not named, it becomes an anonymous
branch. See 'Branch, anonymous' and 'Branch, named'.
Branches may be created when changes are pulled from or
pushed to a remote repository, since new heads may be
created by these operations. Note that the term branch can
also be used informally to describe a development process
in which certain development is done independently of
other development. This is sometimes done explicitly with
a named branch, but it can also be done locally, using
bookmarks or clones and anonymous branches.
Example: "The experimental branch".
(Verb) The action of creating a child changeset which
results in its parent having more than one child.
Example: "I'm going to branch at X".
Branch, anonymous
Every time a new child changeset is created from a parent
that is not a head and the name of the branch is not
changed, a new anonymous branch is created.
Branch, closed
A named branch whose branch heads have all been closed.
Branch, default
The branch assigned to a changeset when no name has
previously been assigned.
Branch head
See 'Head, branch'.
Branch, inactive
If a named branch has no topological heads, it is
considered to be inactive. As an example, a feature branch
becomes inactive when it is merged into the default
branch. The hg branches command shows inactive branches by
default, though they can be hidden with hg branches
--active.
NOTE: this concept is deprecated because it is too
implicit. Branches should now be explicitly closed using
hg commit --close-branch when they are no longer needed.
Branch, named
A collection of changesets which have the same branch
name. By default, children of a changeset in a named
branch belong to the same named branch. A child can be
explicitly assigned to a different branch. See hg help
branch, hg help branches and hg commit --close-branch for
more information on managing branches.
Named branches can be thought of as a kind of namespace,
dividing the collection of changesets that comprise the
repository into a collection of disjoint subsets. A named
branch is not necessarily a topological branch. If a new
named branch is created from the head of another named
branch, or the default branch, but no further changesets
are added to that previous branch, then that previous
branch will be a branch in name only.
Branch tip
See 'Tip, branch'.
Branch, topological
Every time a new child changeset is created from a parent
that is not a head, a new topological branch is created.
If a topological branch is named, it becomes a named
branch. If a topological branch is not named, it becomes
an anonymous branch of the current, possibly default,
branch.
Changelog
A record of the changesets in the order in which they were
added to the repository. This includes details such as
changeset id, author, commit message, date, and list of
changed files.
Changeset
A snapshot of the state of the repository used to record a
change.
Changeset, child
The converse of parent changeset: if P is a parent of C,
then C is a child of P. There is no limit to the number of
children that a changeset may have.
Changeset id
A SHA-1 hash that uniquely identifies a changeset. It may
be represented as either a "long" 40 hexadecimal digit
string, or a "short" 12 hexadecimal digit string.
Changeset, merge
A changeset with two parents. This occurs when a merge is
committed.
Changeset, parent
A revision upon which a child changeset is based.
Specifically, a parent changeset of a changeset C is a
changeset whose node immediately precedes C in the DAG.
Changesets have at most two parents.
Checkout
(Noun) The working directory being updated to a specific
revision. This use should probably be avoided where
possible, as changeset is much more appropriate than
checkout in this context.
Example: "I'm using checkout X."
(Verb) Updating the working directory to a specific
changeset. See hg help update.
Example: "I'm going to check out changeset X."
Child changeset
See 'Changeset, child'.
Close changeset
See 'Head, closed branch'
Closed branch
See 'Branch, closed'.
Clone (Noun) An entire or partial copy of a repository. The
partial clone must be in the form of a revision and its
ancestors.
Example: "Is your clone up to date?".
(Verb) The process of creating a clone, using hg clone.
Example: "I'm going to clone the repository".
Closed branch head
See 'Head, closed branch'.
Commit (Noun) A synonym for changeset.
Example: "Is the bug fixed in your recent commit?"
(Verb) The act of recording changes to a repository. When
files are committed in a working directory, Mercurial
finds the differences between the committed files and
their parent changeset, creating a new changeset in the
repository.
Example: "You should commit those changes now."
Cset A common abbreviation of the term changeset.
DAG The repository of changesets of a distributed version
control system (DVCS) can be described as a directed
acyclic graph (DAG), consisting of nodes and edges, where
nodes correspond to changesets and edges imply a parent ->
child relation. This graph can be visualized by graphical
tools such as hg glog (graphlog). In Mercurial, the DAG is
limited by the requirement for children to have at most
two parents.
Default branch
See 'Branch, default'.
Descendant
Any changeset that can be reached by a chain of child
changesets from a given changeset. More precisely, the
descendants of a changeset can be defined by two
properties: the child of a changeset is a descendant, and
the child of a descendant is a descendant. See also:
'Ancestor'.
Diff (Noun) The difference between the contents and attributes
of files in two changesets or a changeset and the current
working directory. The difference is usually represented
in a standard form called a "diff" or "patch". The "git
diff" format is used when the changes include copies,
renames, or changes to file attributes, none of which can
be represented/handled by classic "diff" and "patch".
Example: "Did you see my correction in the diff?"
(Verb) Diffing two changesets is the action of creating a
diff or patch.
Example: "If you diff with changeset X, you will see what
I mean."
Directory, working
The working directory represents the state of the files
tracked by Mercurial, that will be recorded in the next
commit. The working directory initially corresponds to the
snapshot at an existing changeset, known as the parent of
the working directory. See 'Parent, working directory'.
The state may be modified by changes to the files
introduced manually or by a merge. The repository metadata
exists in the .hg directory inside the working directory.
Draft Changesets in the draft phase have not been shared with
publishing repositories and may thus be safely changed by
history-modifying extensions. See hg help phases.
Graph See DAG and hg help graphlog.
Head The term 'head' may be used to refer to both a branch head
or a repository head, depending on the context. See 'Head,
branch' and 'Head, repository' for specific definitions.
Heads are where development generally takes place and are
the usual targets for update and merge operations.
Head, branch
A changeset with no descendants on the same named branch.
Head, closed branch
A changeset that marks a head as no longer interesting.
The closed head is no longer listed by hg heads. A branch
is considered closed when all its heads are closed and
consequently is not listed by hg branches.
Closed heads can be re-opened by committing new changeset
as the child of the changeset that marks a head as closed.
Head, repository
A topological head which has not been closed.
Head, topological
A changeset with no children in the repository.
History, immutable
Once committed, changesets cannot be altered. Extensions
which appear to change history actually create new
changesets that replace existing ones, and then destroy
the old changesets. Doing so in public repositories can
result in old changesets being reintroduced to the
repository.
History, rewriting
The changesets in a repository are immutable. However,
extensions to Mercurial can be used to alter the
repository, usually in such a way as to preserve changeset
contents.
Immutable history
See 'History, immutable'.
Merge changeset
See 'Changeset, merge'.
Manifest
Each changeset has a manifest, which is the list of files
that are tracked by the changeset.
Merge Used to bring together divergent branches of work. When
you update to a changeset and then merge another
changeset, you bring the history of the latter changeset
into your working directory. Once conflicts are resolved
(and marked), this merge may be committed as a merge
changeset, bringing two branches together in the DAG.
Named branch
See 'Branch, named'.
Null changeset
The empty changeset. It is the parent state of
newly-initialized repositories and repositories with no
checked out revision. It is thus the parent of root
changesets and the effective ancestor when merging
unrelated changesets. Can be specified by the alias 'null'
or by the changeset ID '000000000000'.
Parent See 'Changeset, parent'.
Parent changeset
See 'Changeset, parent'.
Parent, working directory
The working directory parent reflects a virtual revision
which is the child of the changeset (or two changesets
with an uncommitted merge) shown by hg parents. This is
changed with hg update. Other commands to see the working
directory parent are hg summary and hg id. Can be
specified by the alias ".".
Patch (Noun) The product of a diff operation.
Example: "I've sent you my patch."
(Verb) The process of using a patch file to transform one
changeset into another.
Example: "You will need to patch that revision."
Phase A per-changeset state tracking how the changeset has been
or should be shared. See hg help phases.
Public Changesets in the public phase have been shared with
publishing repositories and are therefore considered
immutable. See hg help phases.
Pull An operation in which changesets in a remote repository
which are not in the local repository are brought into the
local repository. Note that this operation without special
arguments only updates the repository, it does not update
the files in the working directory. See hg help pull.
Push An operation in which changesets in a local repository
which are not in a remote repository are sent to the
remote repository. Note that this operation only adds
changesets which have been committed locally to the remote
repository. Uncommitted changes are not sent. See hg help
push.
Repository
The metadata describing all recorded states of a
collection of files. Each recorded state is represented by
a changeset. A repository is usually (but not always)
found in the .hg subdirectory of a working directory. Any
recorded state can be recreated by "updating" a working
directory to a specific changeset.
Repository head
See 'Head, repository'.
Revision
A state of the repository at some point in time. Earlier
revisions can be updated to by using hg update. See also
'Revision number'; See also 'Changeset'.
Revision number
This integer uniquely identifies a changeset in a specific
repository. It represents the order in which changesets
were added to a repository, starting with revision number
0. Note that the revision number may be different in each
clone of a repository. To identify changesets uniquely
between different clones, see 'Changeset id'.
Revlog History storage mechanism used by Mercurial. It is a form
of delta encoding, with occasional full revision of data
followed by delta of each successive revision. It includes
data and an index pointing to the data.
Rewriting history
See 'History, rewriting'.
Root A changeset that has only the null changeset as its
parent. Most repositories have only a single root
changeset.
Secret Changesets in the secret phase may not be shared via push,
pull, or clone. See hg help phases.
Tag An alternative name given to a changeset. Tags can be used
in all places where Mercurial expects a changeset ID,
e.g., with hg update. The creation of a tag is stored in
the history and will thus automatically be shared with
other using push and pull.
Tip The changeset with the highest revision number. It is the
changeset most recently added in a repository.
Tip, branch
The head of a given branch with the highest revision
number. When a branch name is used as a revision
identifier, it refers to the branch tip. See also 'Branch,
head'. Note that because revision numbers may be different
in different repository clones, the branch tip may be
different in different cloned repositories.
Update (Noun) Another synonym of changeset.
Example: "I've pushed an update".
(Verb) This term is usually used to describe updating the
state of the working directory to that of a specific
changeset. See hg help update.
Example: "You should update".
Working directory
See 'Directory, working'.
Working directory parent
See 'Parent, working directory'.
