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Why Do We Need a New Concept
-----------------------------------------------------------

Current DVCS are great tool to forge a series of flawless changeset on your own.
But they perform poorly whe is comes to **share** work in progress and
**collaborate** on such work in progress.

When people forge new version of a changeset they create a new changeset and get
ride of the original changeset. Difficultis to collaborate mostly came from the
way old content are *removed* from repository.

Mercurial Approach: Strip
-----------------------------------------------------

With current version of mercurial, every changesets that exist in your
repository are *visible* and *meaningful*. To get ride of old changeset you
rewrote mercurial remove them from the repository storage. with an operation
called *strip*. After the *strip* the repository looks like if the changeset
never existed.

This approach is simple and effective but have a very big drawnback: You can
remove changesets from **your repository only**. If strip exists in other
repositories it will show of again and again. This only cure for this is to
strip the offending changeset from all repository. And operation at best
impractical and in most case impossible!


As consequence, **you can not rewrite something once you exchange it with
others**. The old version will still exists along side the new one [#]_.

Moreover backup are create stripped changeset in most case. This allow
restoration of old changeset but the process is painful.

Finally, as the repository format is not optimized for deletion. stripping a
changeset may be slow in some situation.


To sum up, the strip approach is very simple but does not handle interaction
with the outer world. Which is unfortunate for a *Distributed* VCS.

.. [#] various work around exists but they are work around with their own flow.

Git Approach: Overwrite Reference
-----------------------------------------------------

Git approach for repository is a bit more complex: They can be any amount of
changeset can exist in a repository. but **only changesets referenced by a git
branch** are *visible* and *meaningful*.


.. warning:: add a schema::

        C
        | B---<foo>
        |/
        |
        A

    Only B and A are visible.

This ease the process of getting ride of old changeset. You can just leave them
in place and move the reference on the new one. You can then propagate those
change by moving the git-branch on remote host, newer version overwritting the
older one.

This approach goes a bit further but still have major drawback:


Because you **overwrite** git-branch  you have no conflit resolution. The last
to spoke win. This make collaboration on multiple changeset difficult because
you can't merge concurent update on changeset.

Every overwrite is forced operation where the operator say "Yes I want this to
replace that. On higly distributed environment user may end with conflicting
reference with and no proper way to choose.

Because of this way to visualize a repository,  git-branches are a very core
part of git. This make user interface more complicated and move through history
more constrainted.

Finally, even if all older changeset still exist in the repository acces to them
is still painful.


-----------------------------------------------------
The Obsolete Marker Concept
-----------------------------------------------------





As None of the concept was powerful enough to embrace the need to safely rewrite
history, easily share and collaborate on mutable history we needed another one.



Basic concept
-----------------------------------------------------


Every history rewriting operation  stores the information that old rewritten
changesets has newer version available in a set of changeset.

All basic history rewriting operation can create a appropriate obsolete marker.


.. figure:: ./figures/example-1-update.*

    *Updating* a changeset

    Create one obsolete marker: ``([A'] obsolete A)``



.. figure:: ./figures/example-2-split.*

    *Splitting* a changeset in multiple one

    Create one obsolete marker ``([B1, B2] obsolete B)]``


.. figure:: ./figures/example-3-merge.*

    *Merging* multiple changeset in a single one

    Create two obsolete markers ``([C] obsolete A), ([C] obsolete B)``

.. figure:: ./figures/example-4-reorder.*

    *Moving* changeset around

    Reordering those two changesets need two obsolete markers:
    ``([A'] obsolete A), ([B'] obsolete B)``



.. figure:: ./figures/example-5-delete.*

    *Removing* a changeset:

    One obselete marker ``([] obsolete B)``


To conclude, a single obsolete marker express a relation from **0..n** new
changesets to **1** old changeset.

Basic Usage
-----------------------------------------------------

Obsolete markers create a perpendicular history: **a versionned version of the
changeset graph**. This means that we can have the same feature we have for
versioned files but applied to changeset:

First: we can display a **coherent view** of the history graph with only a
single version of your changeset are displayed by the UI.

Second, because obsolete changeset content are still **available**. You can 

    * **browse** the content of your obsolete commit,

    * **compare** newer and older version of a changeset,

    * **restore** content of previously obsolete changeset.

Finally, obsolete marker can be **exchanged between repositories**. You are able to
share the result on your history rewriting operation with other and **collaborate
on mutable part of the history**.

Conflicting history rewriting operation can be detected and **resolved** as easily
as conflicting changes on file.


Detecting and solving tricky situation
-----------------------------------------------------

History rewriting can lead to complex situation. Obsolete marker introduce a
simple representation this complex reality. But people using complex workflow
will one day or another you have to face the intrinsics complexity of some
situation.

This section describe possible situations, define precise set of changesets
involved in such situation and explains how error case can we automatically
resolved using available information.


obsolete changesets
````````````````````

Old changesets left behind by obsolete operation are said **obsolete**.

With current version of mercurial, this *obsolete* part is stripped from the
repository before the end of every rewritting operation.

.. figure:: ./figures/error-obsolete.*

    Rebasing `B` and `C` on `A` (as `B'`, `C'`)

    This rebase operation added two obsolete markers from new changesets to old
    changesets. These Two old changesets are now part of the *obsolete* part of the
    history.

In most case the obsolete set will be fully hidden to both UI and discovery so
user do not have to care about them unless he wants to audit history rewriting
operation.

Unstable changesets
```````````````````

While exploring obsolete marker possibility a bit further you way end up with
*obsolete* changeset with *non-obsolete* children. There is two common ways to
achieve this:

* Pull a changeset based of an old version of a changeset [#]_.

* Use a partial rewriting operation. For example amend on a changeset with
  childrens.

*Non-obsolete* changeset based on *obsolete* one are said **unstable**

.. figure:: ./figures/error-unstable.*

    Amend `A` into `A'` leaving `B` behind.

    In this situation we can not consider `B` as *obsolete*.  But we have all
    necessary data to detect `B` as an *unstable* branch of the history because
    its parent `A` is *obsolete*. In addition, we have enough data to
    automatically resolve this instability: we know that the new version of `B`
    parent (`A`) is `A'`, We can deduce that we should rebase `B` on `A'` to get
    a stable history again.

Proper warning should be issued when part of the history become unstable. UI
will be able to use the obsolete marker to automatically suggest resolution to
the user of even carry them out for him.


XXX details automatic resolution for

* movement

* handling deletion

* handling split on multiple head


.. [#] For this to happen one needs to explicitly enable exchange of draft
       changeset. See phase help for details.

The two part of the obsolete set
``````````````````````````````````````

The previous section show that it could be two kinds of *obsolete* changeset:


* *obsolete* changeset with no or *obsolete* only descendants, said **extinct**.

* *obsolete* changeset with *unstable* descendants, said **suspended**.


.. figure:: ./figures/error-extinct.*

    Amend `A` and `C` leaving `B` behind.

    In this example we have two *obsolete* changesets: `C` with no *unstable*
    children is *extinct*. `A` with *unstable* descendant (`B`) is *suspended*.
    `B` is *unstable* as before.


Because nothing outside the obsolete set default on *extinct* changesets, they
can be safely hidden in the UI and even garbage collected. *Suspended* changeset
have to stay visible and available until they unstable descendant are rewritten
in stable version.


Conflicting rewriting
``````````````````````

If people start to concurrently edit the same part of the history they will
likely meet conflicting situation when a changeset have been rewritten in two
different versions.


.. figure:: ./figures/error-conflicting.*

    Conflicting rewriting of `A` into `A'` and `A''`

This kind of conflict is easy to detect with obsolete marker because an obsolete
changeset have more than one new version. It may be seen as the multiple heads
case Mercurial warn you about on pull. It is resolved the same way by a merge of
A' and A'' that will keep the same parent than `A'` and `A''` with two obsolete
markers pointing to both `A` and `A'`

.. warning::  TODO: Add a schema of the resolution. (merge A' and A'' with A as
              ancestor and graft the result of A^)

Allowing multiple new changesets to obsolete a single one allow to distinct a
splitted changeset from history rewriting conflict.

Reliable history
``````````````````````

Obsolete marker really help to smooth rewriting operation process. However they
do not change the fact that **you should only rewrite the mutable part of the
history**. The phase concept enforce this rules by explicitly defining a
public immutable set of changeset. Rewriting operation refuse to work on
public changeset, but they is still some corner case where changesets
rewritten in the past are made public.

Special rules apply for obsolete marker pointing to public changeset

* Public changesets are excluded from the obsolete set (public changeset are
  never hidden or candidate to garbage collection)

* *newer* version of public changeset are said **latecomer** and highlighted as
  error case.


Solving such error is easy. Because we know what changeset a *latecomer* try to
rewrite, we can easily compute a smaller changeset containing only the change
from the old *public* to the new *latecomer*.


.. warning:: add a schema


Conclusion
----------------

Obsolete marker is a powerful concept that allow mercurial to safely handle
history rewriting operations. It is a new type of relation between Mercurial
changesets that track the result of history rewriting operations.

This concept is simple to define and provides a very solid base to:


- Very fast history rewriting operations,

- auditable and reversible history rewritting process,

- clean final history,

- share and collaborate on mutable part of the history,

- gracefully handle history rewriting conflict,

- allows various history rewriting UI to collaborate with a underlying common API.

.. list-table:: Comparison on solution [#]_
   :header-rows: 1

   * - Solution
     - Remove changeset locally
     - Works on any point of your history
     - Propagation
     - Collaboration
     - Speed
     - Access to older version

   * - Strip
     - `+`
     - `+`
     - \
     - \ 
     - \ 
     - `- -`

   * - Reference
     - `+`
     - \ 
     - `+`
     - \ 
     - `+`
     - `-`

   * - Obsolete
     - `+`
     - `+`
     - `++`
     - `++`
     - `+`
     - `+`



.. [#] To preserve good tradition in comparison table, an overwhelming advantage
       goes to the defended solution.