mercurial/helptext/phases.txt

debugmergestate: make templated

Our IntelliJ team wants to be able to read the merge state in order to
help the user resolve merge conflicts. They had so far been reading
file contents from p1() and p2() and their merge base. That is not
ideal for several reasons (merge base is not necessarily the "graft
base", renames are not handled, commands like `hg update -m` is not
handled). It will get especially bad as of my D7827. This patch makes
the output s a templated. I haven't bothered to make it complete
(e.g. merge driver states are not handled), but it's probably good
enough as a start.

I've done a web search for "debugmergestate" and I can't find any
indication that any tools currently rely on its output. If it turns
out that we get bug reports for it once this is released, I won't
object to backing this patch out on the stable branch (and then
perhaps replace it by a separate command, or put it behind a new
flag).

The changes in test-backout.t are interesting, in particular this:

```
  -    other path: foo (node not stored in v1 format)
  +    other path:  (node foo)
```

I wonder if that means that we actually read v1 format
incorrectly. That seems to be an old format that was switched away
from in 2014, so it doesn't matter now anyway.

Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D8120

What are phases?
================

Phases are a system for tracking which changesets have been or should
be shared. This helps prevent common mistakes when modifying history
(for instance, with the mq or rebase extensions).

Each changeset in a repository is in one of the following phases:

 - public : changeset is visible on a public server
 - draft : changeset is not yet published
 - secret : changeset should not be pushed, pulled, or cloned

These phases are ordered (public < draft < secret) and no changeset
can be in a lower phase than its ancestors. For instance, if a
changeset is public, all its ancestors are also public. Lastly,
changeset phases should only be changed towards the public phase.

How are phases managed?
=======================

For the most part, phases should work transparently. By default, a
changeset is created in the draft phase and is moved into the public
phase when it is pushed to another repository.

Once changesets become public, extensions like mq and rebase will
refuse to operate on them to prevent creating duplicate changesets.
Phases can also be manually manipulated with the :hg:`phase` command
if needed. See :hg:`help -v phase` for examples.

To make your commits secret by default, put this in your
configuration file::

  [phases]
  new-commit = secret

Phases and servers
==================

Normally, all servers are ``publishing`` by default. This means::

 - all draft changesets that are pulled or cloned appear in phase
 public on the client

 - all draft changesets that are pushed appear as public on both
 client and server

 - secret changesets are neither pushed, pulled, or cloned

.. note::

  Pulling a draft changeset from a publishing server does not mark it
  as public on the server side due to the read-only nature of pull.

Sometimes it may be desirable to push and pull changesets in the draft
phase to share unfinished work. This can be done by setting a
repository to disable publishing in its configuration file::

  [phases]
  publish = False

See :hg:`help config` for more information on configuration files.

.. note::

  Servers running older versions of Mercurial are treated as
  publishing.

.. note::

   Changesets in secret phase are not exchanged with the server. This
   applies to their content: file names, file contents, and changeset
   metadata. For technical reasons, the identifier (e.g. d825e4025e39)
   of the secret changeset may be communicated to the server.


Examples
========

 - list changesets in draft or secret phase::

     hg log -r "not public()"

 - change all secret changesets to draft::

     hg phase --draft "secret()"

 - forcibly move the current changeset and descendants from public to draft::

     hg phase --force --draft .

 - show a list of changeset revisions and each corresponding phase::

     hg log --template "{rev} {phase}\n"

 - resynchronize draft changesets relative to a remote repository::

     hg phase -fd "outgoing(URL)"

See :hg:`help phase` for more information on manually manipulating phases.