# evolve extension for Mercurial

## Evolve: Shared Mutable History

Contents

- Evolve: Shared Mutable History
  - Sharing with a single developer
    - Publishing and non-publishing repositories
    - Setting up
    - Example 1: Amend a shared changeset
    - Example 2: Amend again, locally
  - Sharing with multiple developers: code review
    - Setting up
    - Example 3: Alice commits and amends a draft fix
    - Example 4: Bob implements and publishes a new feature
    - Example 5: Alice integrates and publishes
  - Getting into trouble with shared mutable history
    - Setting up
    - Example 6: Divergent changesets
    - Phase-divergence: when a rewritten changeset is made public
  - Conclusion

Once you have mastered the art of mutable history in a single repository (see the user guide), you can move up to the next level: shared mutable history. `evolve` lets you push and pull draft changesets between repositories along with their obsolescence markers. This opens up a number of interesting possibilities.

The simplest scenario is a single developer working across two computers. Say you’re working on code that must be tested on a remote test server, probably in a rack somewhere, only accessible by SSH, and running an “enterprise-grade” (out-of-date) OS. But you probably prefer to write code locally: everything is setup the way you like it, and you can use your preferred editor, IDE, merge/diff tools, etc.

Traditionally, your options are limited: either

> - (ab)use your source control system by committing half-working code in order to get it onto the remote test server, or
> - go behind source control’s back by using `rsync` (or similar) to transfer your code back-and-forth until it is ready to commit

The former is less bad with distributed version control systems like Mercurial, but it’s still far from ideal. (One important version control “best practice” is that every commit should make things just a little bit better, i.e. you should never commit code that is worse than what came before.) The latter, avoiding version control entirely, means that you’re walking a tightrope without a safety net. One accidental `rsync` in the wrong direction could destroy hours of work.

Using Mercurial with `evolve` to share mutable history solves these problems. As with single-repository `evolve`, you can commit whenever the code is demonstrably better, even if all the tests aren’t passing yet—just `hg amend` when they are. And you can transfer those half-baked changesets between repositories to try things out on your test server before anything is carved in stone.

A less common scenario is multiple developers sharing mutable history, typically for code review. We’ll cover this scenario later. First, we will cover single-user sharing.

## Sharing with a single developer

### Publishing and non-publishing repositories

The key to shared mutable history is to keep your changesets in draft phase as you pass them around. Recall that by default, `hg push` promotes changesets from draft to public, and public changesets are immutable. You can change this behaviour by reconfiguring the remote repository so that it is non-publishing. (Short version: set `phases.publish` to `false`. Long version follows.)

### Setting up

We’ll work through an example with three local repositories, although in the real world they’d most likely be on three different computers. First, the `public` repository is where tested, polished changesets live, and it is where you synchronize with the rest of your team.

    $ hg init public

We’ll need two clones where work gets done, `test-repo` and `dev-repo`:

    $ hg clone public test-repo
    updating to branch default
    0 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
    $ hg clone test-repo dev-repo
    updating to branch default
    0 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

`dev-repo` is your local machine, with GUI merge tools and IDEs and everything configured just the way you like it. `test-repo` is the test server in a rack somewhere behind SSH. So for the most part, we’ll develop in `dev-repo`, push to `test-repo`, test and polish there, and push to `public`.

The key to shared mutable history is to make the target repository, in this case `test-repo`, non-publishing. And, of course, we have to enable the `evolve` extension in both `test-repo` and `dev-repo`.

First, edit the configuration for `test-repo`:

    $ hg -R test-repo config --edit --local

and add

    [phases]
    publish = false

    [extensions]
    evolve =

Then edit the configuration for `dev-repo`:

    $ hg -R dev-repo config --edit --local

and add

    [extensions]
    evolve =

Keep in mind that in real life, these repositories would probably be on separate computers, so you’d have to login to each one to configure each repository.

To start things off, let’s make one public, immutable changeset:

    $ cd test-repo
    $ echo 'my new project' > file1
    $ hg add file1
    $ hg commit -m 'create new project'
    $ hg push
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files

and pull that into the development repository:

    $ cd ../dev-repo
    $ hg pull -u
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

### Example 1: Amend a shared changeset

Everything you learned in the user guide applies to work done in `dev-repo`. You can commit, amend, uncommit, evolve, and so forth just as before.

Things get different when you push changesets to `test-repo`. Or rather, things stay the same, which is different: because we configured `test-repo` to be non-publishing, draft changesets stay draft when we push them to `test-repo`. Importantly, they’re also draft (mutable) in `test-repo`.

Let’s commit a preliminary change and push it to `test-repo` for testing.

    $ echo 'fix fix fix' > file1
    $ hg commit -m 'prelim change'
    $ hg push ../test-repo

At this point, `dev-repo` and `test-repo` have the same changesets in the same phases:

> [figure SG01: rev 0:0dc9 public, rev 1:f649 draft, same on both repos]

(You may notice a change in notation from the user guide: now changesets are labelled with their revision number and the first four digits of the 40-digit hexadecimal changeset ID. Mercurial revision numbers are never stable when working across repositories, especially when obsolescence is involved. We’ll see why shortly.)

Now let’s switch to `test-repo` to test our change:

    $ cd ../test-repo
    $ hg update

Don’t forget to `hg update`! Pushing only adds changesets to a remote repository; it does not update the working directory (unless you have a hook that updates for you).

Now let’s imagine the tests failed because we didn’t use proper punctuation and capitalization (oops). Let’s amend our preliminary fix (and fix the lame commit message while we’re at it):

    $ echo 'Fix fix fix.' > file1
    $ hg amend -m 'fix bug 37'

Now we’re in a funny intermediate state (figure 2): revision 1:f649 is obsolete in `test-repo`, having been replaced by revision 3:60ff (revision 2:2a03 is another one of those temporary amend commits that we saw in the user guide)—but `dev-repo` knows nothing of these recent developments.

> [figure SG02: test-repo has rev 0:0dc9 public, rev 1:f649, 2:2a03 obsolete, rev 3:60ff draft; dev-repo same as in SG01]

Let’s resynchronize:

    $ cd ../dev-repo
    $ hg pull -u
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

As seen in figure 3, this transfers the new changeset and the obsolescence marker for revision 1. However, it does not transfer the temporary amend commit, because it is hidden. Push and pull transfer obsolescence markers between repositories, but they do not transfer hidden changesets.

> [figure SG03: dev-repo grows new rev 2:60ff, marks 1:f649 obsolete]

Because of this deliberately incomplete synchronization, revision numbers in `test-repo` and `dev-repo` are no longer consistent. We must use changeset IDs.

### Example 2: Amend again, locally

This process can repeat. Perhaps you figure out a more elegant fix to the bug, and want to mutate history so nobody ever knows you had a less-than-perfect idea. We’ll implement it locally in `dev-repo` and push to `test-repo`:

    $ echo 'Fix, fix, and fix.' > file1
    $ hg amend
    $ hg push

This time around, the temporary amend commit is in `dev-repo`, and it is not transferred to `test-repo`—the same as before, just in the opposite direction. Figure 4 shows the two repositories after amending in `dev-repo` and pushing to `test-repo`.

> [figure SG04: each repo has one temporary amend commit, but they’re different in each one]

Let’s hop over to `test-repo` to test the more elegant fix:

    $ cd ../test-repo
    $ hg update
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

This time, all the tests pass, so no further amending is required. This bug fix is finished, so we push it to the public repository:

    $ hg push
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files

Note that only one changeset—the final version, after two amendments—was actually pushed. Again, Mercurial doesn’t transfer hidden changesets on push and pull.

So the picture in `public` is much simpler than in either `dev-repo` or `test-repo`. Neither of our missteps nor our amendments are publicly visible, just the final, beautifully polished changeset:

> [figure SG05: public repo with rev 0:0dc9, 1:de61, both public]

There is one important step left to do. Because we pushed from `test-repo` to `public`, the pushed changeset is in public phase in those two repositories. But `dev-repo` has been out-of-the-loop; changeset de61 is still draft there. If we’re not careful, we might mutate history in `dev-repo`, obsoleting a changeset that is already public. Let’s avoid that situation for now by pushing up to `dev-repo`:

    $ hg push ../dev-repo
    pushing to ../dev-repo
    searching for changes
    no changes found

Even though no changesets were pushed, Mercurial still pushed obsolescence markers and phase changes to `dev-repo`.

A final note: since this fix is now public, it is immutable. It’s no longer possible to amend it:

    $ hg amend -m 'fix bug 37'
    abort: cannot amend public changesets

This is, after all, the whole point of Mercurial’s phases: to prevent rewriting history that has already been published.

## Sharing with multiple developers: code review

Now that you know how to share your own mutable history across multiple computers, you might be wondering if it makes sense to share mutable history with others. It does, but you have to be careful, stay alert, and communicate with your peers.

Code review is a good use case for sharing mutable history across multiple developers: Alice commits a draft changeset, submits it for review, and amends her changeset until her reviewer is satisfied. Meanwhile, Bob is also committing draft changesets for review, amending until his reviewer is satisfied. Once a particular changeset passes review, the respective author (Alice or Bob) pushes it to the public (publishing) repository.

Incidentally, the reviewers here can be anyone: maybe Bob and Alice review each other’s work; maybe the same third party reviews both; or maybe they pick different experts to review their work on different parts of a large codebase. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if reviews are conducted in person, by email, or by carrier pigeon. Code review is outside of the scope of Mercurial, so all we’re looking at here is the mechanics of committing, amending, pushing, and pulling.

### Setting up

To demonstrate, let’s start with the `public` repository as we left it in the last example, with two immutable changesets (figure 5 above). We’ll clone a `review` repository from it, and then Alice and Bob will both clone from `review`.

    $ hg clone public review
    updating to branch default
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
    $ hg clone review alice
    updating to branch default
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
    $ hg clone review bob
    updating to branch default
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

We need to configure Alice’s and Bob’s working repositories to enable `evolve`. First, edit Alice’s configuration with

    $ hg -R alice config --edit --local

and add

    [extensions]
    evolve =

Then edit Bob’s repository configuration:

    $ hg -R bob config --edit --local

and add the same text.

### Example 3: Alice commits and amends a draft fix

We’ll follow Alice working on a bug fix. We’re going to use bookmarks to make it easier to understand multiple branch heads in the `review` repository, so Alice starts off by creating a bookmark and committing her first attempt at a fix:

    $ hg bookmark bug15
    $ echo 'fix' > file2
    $ hg commit -A -u alice -m 'fix bug 15 (v1)'
    adding file2

Note the unorthodox “(v1)” in the commit message. We’re just using that to make this tutorial easier to follow; it’s not something we’d recommend in real life.

Of course Alice wouldn’t commit unless her fix worked to her satisfaction, so it must be time to solicit a code review. She does this by pushing to the `review` repository:

    $ hg push -B bug15
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
    exporting bookmark bug15

(The use of `-B` is important to ensure that we only push the bookmarked head, and that the bookmark itself is pushed. See this guide to bookmarks, especially the Sharing Bookmarks section, if you’re not familiar with bookmarks.)

Some time passes, and Alice receives her code review. As a result, Alice revises her fix and submits it for a second review:

    $ echo 'Fix.' > file2
    $ hg amend -m 'fix bug 15 (v2)'
    $ hg push
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    updating bookmark bug15

Figure 6 shows the state of the `review` repository at this point.

> [figure SG06: rev 2:fn1e is Alice’s obsolete v1, rev 3:cbdf is her v2; both children of rev 1:de61]

After a busy morning of bug fixing, Alice stops for lunch. Let’s see what Bob has been up to.

### Example 4: Bob implements and publishes a new feature

Meanwhile, Bob has been working on a new feature. Like Alice, he’ll use a bookmark to track his work, and he’ll push that bookmark to the `review` repository, so that reviewers know which changesets to review.

    $ cd ../bob
    $ echo 'stuff' > file1
    $ hg bookmark featureX
    $ hg commit -u bob -m 'implement feature X (v1)'          # rev 4:1636
    $ hg push -B featureX
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    exporting bookmark featureX

When Bob receives his code review, he improves his implementation a bit, amends, and submits the resulting changeset for review:

    $ echo 'do stuff' > file1
    $ hg amend -m 'implement feature X (v2)'                  # rev 5:0eb7
    $ hg push
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    updating bookmark featureX

Unfortunately, that still doesn’t pass muster. Bob’s reviewer insists on proper capitalization and punctuation.

    $ echo 'Do stuff.' > file1
    $ hg amend -m 'implement feature X (v3)'                  # rev 6:540b

On the bright side, the second review said, “Go ahead and publish once you fix that.” So Bob immediately publishes his third attempt:

    $ hg push ../public
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files

It’s not enough just to update `public`, though! Other people also use the `review` repository, and right now it doesn’t have Bob’s latest amendment (“v3”, revision 6:540b), nor does it know that the precursor of that changeset (“v2”, revision 5:0eb7) is obsolete. Thus, Bob pushes to `review` as well:

    $ hg push ../review
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    updating bookmark featureX

Figure 7 shows the result of Bob’s work in both `review` and `public`.

> [figure SG07: review includes Alice’s draft work on bug 15, as well as Bob’s v1, v2, and v3 changes for feature X: v1 and v2 obsolete, v3 public. public contains only the final, public implementation of feature X]

Incidentally, it’s important that Bob push to `public` before `review`. If he pushed to `review` first, then revision 6:540b would still be in draft phase in `review`, but it would be public in both Bob’s local repository and the `public` repository. That could lead to confusion at some point, which is easily avoided by pushing first to `public`.

### Example 5: Alice integrates and publishes

Finally, Alice gets back from lunch and sees that the carrier pigeon with her second review has arrived (or maybe it’s in her email inbox). Alice’s reviewer approved her amended changeset, so she pushes it to `public`:

    $ hg push ../public
    [...]
    remote has heads on branch 'default' that are not known locally: 540ba8f317e6
    abort: push creates new remote head cbdfbd5a5db2!
    (pull and merge or see "hg help push" for details about pushing new heads)

Oops! Bob has won the race to push first to `public`. So Alice needs to integrate with Bob: let’s pull his changeset(s) and see what the branch heads are.

    $ hg pull ../public
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files (+1 heads)
    (run 'hg heads' to see heads, 'hg merge' to merge)
    $ hg log -G -q -r 'head()' --template '{rev}:{node|short}  ({author})\n'
    o  5:540ba8f317e6  (bob)
    |
    | @  4:cbdfbd5a5db2  (alice)
    |/

We’ll assume Alice and Bob are perfectly comfortable with rebasing changesets. (After all, they’re already using mutable history in the form of `amend`.) So Alice rebases her changeset on top of Bob’s and publishes the result:

    $ hg rebase -d 5
    $ hg push ../public
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
    $ hg push ../review
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 0 changes to 0 files
    updating bookmark bug15

The result, in both `review` and `public` repositories, is shown in figure 8.

> [figure SG08: review shows v1 and v2 of Alice’s fix, then v1, v2, v3 of Bob’s feature, finally Alice’s fix rebased onto Bob’s. public just shows the final public version of each changeset]

## Getting into trouble with shared mutable history

Mercurial with `evolve` is a powerful tool, and using powerful tools can have consequences. (You can cut yourself badly with a sharp knife, but every competent chef keeps several around. Ever try to chop onions with a spoon?)

In the user guide, we saw examples of unstbale changesets, which are the most common type of troubled changeset. (Recall that a non-obsolete changeset with obsolete ancestors is an orphan.)

Two other types of troubles can happen: divergent and bumped changesets. Both are more likely with shared mutable history, especially mutable history shared by multiple developers.

### Setting up

For these examples, we’re going to use a slightly different workflow: as before, Alice and Bob share a `public` repository. But this time there is no `review` repository. Instead, Alice and Bob put on their cowboy hats, throw good practice to the wind, and pull directly from each other’s working repositories.

So we throw away everything except `public` and reclone:

    $ rm -rf review alice bob
    $ hg clone public alice
    updating to branch default
    2 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
    $ hg clone public bob
    updating to branch default
    2 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

Once again we have to configure their repositories: enable `evolve` and (since Alice and Bob will be pulling directly from each other) make their repositories non-publishing. Edit Alice’s configuration:

    $ hg -R alice config --edit --local

and add

    [extensions]
    rebase =
    evolve =

    [phases]
    publish = false

Then edit Bob’s repository configuration:

    $ hg -R bob config --edit --local

and add the same text.

### Example 6: Divergent changesets

When an obsolete changeset has two successors, those successors are divergent. One way to get into such a situation is by failing to communicate with your teammates. Let’s see how that might happen.

First, we’ll have Bob commit a bug fix that could still be improved:

    $ cd bob
    $ echo 'pretty good fix' >> file1
    $ hg commit -u bob -m 'fix bug 24 (v1)'                   # rev 4:2fe6

Since Alice and Bob are now in cowboy mode, Alice pulls Bob’s draft changeset and amends it herself.

    $ cd ../alice
    $ hg pull -u ../bob
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
    $ echo 'better fix (alice)' >> file1
    $ hg amend -u alice -m 'fix bug 24 (v2 by alice)'

But Bob has no idea that Alice just did this. (See how important good communication is?) So he implements a better fix of his own:

    $ cd ../bob
    $ echo 'better fix (bob)' >> file1
    $ hg amend -u bob -m 'fix bug 24 (v2 by bob)'             # rev 6:a360

At this point, the divergence exists, but only in theory: Bob’s original changeset, 4:2fe6, is obsolete and has two successors. But those successors are in different repositories, so the trouble is not visible to anyone yet. It will be as soon as Bob pulls from Alice’s repository (or vice-versa).

    $ hg pull ../alice
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 2 files (+1 heads)
    (run 'hg heads' to see heads, 'hg merge' to merge)
    2 new divergent changesets

Figure 9 shows the situation in Bob’s repository.

> [figure SG09: Bob’s repo with 2 heads for the 2 divergent changesets, 6:a360 and 7:e3f9; wc is at 6:a360; both are successors of obsolete 4:2fe6, hence divergence]

Now we need to get out of trouble. As usual, the answer is to evolve history.

    $ HGMERGE=internal:other hg evolve
    merge:[6] fix bug 24 (v2 by bob)
    with: [7] fix bug 24 (v2 by alice)
    base: [4] fix bug 24 (v1)
    0 files updated, 1 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

Figure 10 shows how Bob’s repository looks now.

> [figure SG10: only one visible head, 9:5ad6, successor to hidden 6:a360 and 7:e3f9]

We carefully dodged a merge conflict by specifying a merge tool (`internal:other`) that will take Alice’s changes over Bob’s. (You might wonder why Bob wouldn’t prefer his own changes by using `internal:local`. He’s avoiding a bug in `evolve` that occurs when evolving divergent changesets using `internal:local`.)

# XXX this link does not work .. bug: https://bitbucket.org/marmoute/mutable-history/issue/48/

** STOP HERE: WORK IN PROGRESS **

### Phase-divergence: when a rewritten changeset is made public

If Alice and Bob are collaborating on some mutable changesets, it’s possible to get into a situation where an otherwise worthwhile changeset cannot be pushed to the public repository; it is phase-divergent with another changeset that was made public first. Let’s demonstrate one way this could happen.

It starts with Alice committing a bug fix. Right now, we don’t yet know if this bug fix is good enough to push to the public repository, but it’s good enough for Alice to commit.

    $ cd alice
    $ echo 'fix' > file2
    $ hg commit -A -m 'fix bug 15'
    adding file2

Now Bob has a bad idea: he decides to pull whatever Alice is working on and tweak her bug fix to his taste:

    $ cd ../bob
    $ hg pull -u ../alice
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
    1 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
    $ echo 'Fix.' > file2
    $ hg amend -A -m 'fix bug 15 (amended)'

(Note the lack of communication between Alice and Bob. Failing to communicate with your colleagues is a good way to get into trouble. Nevertheless, `evolve` can usually sort things out, as we will see.)

> [figure SG06: Bob’s repo with one amendment]

After some testing, Alice realizes her bug fix is just fine as it is: no need for further polishing and amending, this changeset is ready to publish.

    $ cd ../alice
    $ hg push
    [...]
    added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files

This introduces a contradiction: in Bob’s repository, changeset 2:e011 (his copy of Alice’s fix) is obsolete, since Bob amended it. But in Alice’s repository (and the `public` repository), that changeset is public: it is immutable, carved in stone for all eternity. No changeset can be both obsolete and public, so Bob is in for a surprise the next time he pulls from `public`:

    $ cd ../bob
    $ hg pull -q -u
    1 new phase-divergent changesets

Figure 7 shows what just happened to Bob’s repository: changeset 2:e011 is now public, so it can’t be obsolete. When that changeset was obsolete, it made perfect sense for it to have a successor, namely Bob’s amendment of Alice’s fix (changeset 4:fe88). But it’s illogical for a public changeset to have a successor, so 4:fe88 is troubled: it has become bumped.

> [figure SG07: 2:e011 now public not obsolete, 4:fe88 now bumped]

As usual when there’s trouble in your repository, the solution is to evolve it:

    $ hg evolve --all

Figure 8 illustrates Bob’s repository after evolving away the bumped changeset. Ignoring the obsolete changesets, Bob now has a nice, clean, simple history. His amendment of Alice’s bug fix lives on, as changeset 5:227d—albeit with a software-generated commit message. (Bob should probably amend that changeset to improve the commit message.) But the important thing is that his repository no longer has any troubled changesets, thanks to `evolve`.

> [figure SG08: 5:227d is new, formerly bumped changeset 4:fe88 now hidden]

## Conclusion

Mutable history is a powerful tool. Like a sharp knife, an experienced user can do wonderful things with it, much more wonderful than with a dull knife (never mind a rusty spoon). At the same time, an inattentive or careless user can do harm to himself or others. Mercurial with `evolve` goes to great lengths to limit the harm you can do by trying to handle all possible types of “troubled” changesets. Nevertheless, having a first-aid kit nearby does not mean you should stop being careful with sharp knives.

Mutable history shared across multiple repositories by a single developer is a natural extension of this model. Once you are used to using a single sharp knife on its own, it’s pretty straightforward to chop onions and mushrooms using the same knife, or to alternate between two chopping boards with different knives.

Mutable history shared by multiple developers is a scary place to go. Imagine a professional kitchen full of expert chefs tossing their favourite knives back and forth, with the occasional axe or chainsaw thrown in to spice things up. If you’re confident that you and your colleagues can do it without losing a limb, go for it. But be sure to practice a lot first before you rely on it!