view mercurial/helptext/phases.txt @ 50336:cf4d2f31660d stable

chg: populate CHGHG if not set

Normally, chg determines which `hg` executable to use by first consulting the
`$CHGHG` and `$HG` environment variables, and if neither are present defaults
to the `hg` found in the user's `$PATH`. If built with the `HGPATHREL` compiler
flag, chg will instead assume that there exists an `hg` executable in the same
directory as the `chg` binary and attempt to use that.

This can cause problems in situations where there are multiple actively-used
Mercurial installations on the same system. When a `chg` client connects to a
running command server, the server process performs some basic validation to
determine whether a new command server needs to be spawned. These checks include
things like checking certain "sensitive" environment variables and config
sections, as well as checking whether the mtime of the extensions, hg's
`__version__.py` module, and the Python interpreter have changed.

Crucially, the command server doesn't explicitly check whether the executable it
is running from matches the executable that the `chg` client would have
otherwise invoked had there been no existing command server process. Without
`HGPATHREL`, this still gets implicitly checked during the validation step,
because the only way to specify an alternate hg executable (apart from `$PATH`)
is via the `$CHGHG` and `$HG` environment variables, both of which are checked.

With `HGPATHREL`, however, the command server has no way of knowing which hg
executable the client would have run. This means that a client located at
`/version_B/bin/chg` will happily connect to a command server running
`/version_A/bin/hg` instead of `/version_B/bin/hg` as expected. A simple
solution is to have the client set `$CHGHG` itself, which then allows the
command server's environment validation to work as intended.

I have tested this manually using two locally built hg installations and it
seems to work with no ill effects. That said, I'm not sure how to write an
automated test for this since the `chg` available to the tests isn't even built
with the `HGPATHREL` compiler flag to begin with.

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.