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#pragma section-numbers 2

= States Plan =

/!\ This page is intended for developers

A set of proposed Mercurial features to cleanly and safely handle mutable history.

<<TableOfContents>>

== Introduction ==

This page aims to define features connected with the 'liquid hg'
discussion in enough detail that they can be fine-tuned and
implemented.

They are intentionally presented in a proposed order of
implementation.

== Hidden changesets ==

Various features will require changesets to be hidden by default. So
it makes sense to implement a centralized method of dealing with this
property.

Usage:

Hidden changesets can be shown with the --hidden flag, eg 'hg
log --hidden' will show all changesets.

Implementation:

The changelog object contains a _hidden set (using
revision numbers) that log and other commands consult. To hide a
changeset, add it to the set at startup. Contexts are given a
.hidden() predicate that consults the set.

== Changeset states ==

A 'changeset state' is an indicator that tells us how a changeset is
manipulated and communicated. The details of each state is described
below, here we describe their shared properties.

Like bookmarks, states are not stored in history and thus are not
permanent and leave no audit trail.

First, no changeset can be in two states at once. States are also
ordered, so they can be considered from lowest to highest. The
default, lowest state is 'frozen' - this is the normal state of
existing changesets. No child changeset can be in a lower state than
its parents.

The proposed states are:

frozen < liquid < local < dead

These states share a hierarchy of traits:

|| || mutable || unshared || hidden || GC-able||
||frozen|| || || || ||
||liquid|| x || || || ||
||local || x || x || || ||
||dead || x || x || x || x ||

These names are subject to change. Some of them have initials that
collide with each other and with options like force and they don't
have an obvious progression.

=== Usage ===

States are manipulated via the 'hg state' command, ie 'hg state -f x'
to mark x as frozen. Each state puts its own constraints on how it can
be manipulated. The current state of changesets is displayed in the
log with a 'state:' header. The frozen state is not displayed at all.

=== Implementation ===

Contexts provide a state() method that returns the current state as a
string. It may be useful to represent the frozen state with the empty
string.

== Frozen changesets ==

Frozen changesets are changesets that are considered permanently
immutable. This matches the history model presented by legacy Mercurial:
changesets cannot be changed or removed without using history editing
features from extensions. This state can be thought of as 'published':
once a changeset is published, it becomes very difficult to remove it
from distributed history.

=== Usage ===

Changeset are moved to the frozen state via 'hg state --frozen X'.

=== Implementation ===

N/A

=== Legacy clients ===

N/A

== Liquid changesets ==

Liquid changesets are changesets that the user is permitted to use
history-modifying operations like rebase or mq on. They may
not be tagged. They may also be thought of as 'unpublished'.

Various operations such as pushing to certain public servers will move
changesets into the frozen state. Changesets cannot be moved from
frozen to liquid without a forcing operation.

The liquidity of changesets can be communicated between compatible
servers and clients. This allows people to collaborate on work in
progress before it becomes finalized.

This should generally be engineered such that users don't have to give
any additional thought to liquid vs frozen in their day-to-day usage.

=== Usage ===

Changesets must be in a liquid state when they are created. So new
commits will start in a liquid state by default.

=== Implementation ===

The set of liquid changesets is stored as a list of liquid roots. All
descendants of these roots are liquid (or in a higher state). This set
is known as the 'liquid barrier' and defines the 'liquid set'. This
barrier is intended only to advance.

The liquid barrier is communicated via the pushkey protocol to servers
that support it. The client is responsible for advancing the barrier
on both the client and server sides. On each operation, the client
reduces the liquid set on both sides to the intersection of the sets
on the client and server. That is, if a changeset is frozen on either
side, it becomes frozen on both sides.

Some servers are configured as 'publishing servers'. Legacy servers
are publishing servers by default. These are recognized by not having
the 'liquid' pushkey namespace. When pushing to a publishing server,
all pushed changesets are moved into the frozen state on the client.
Similarly, all changesets pulled from a publishing server are treated
as frozen.

=== Legacy clients ===

See above for pushing to legacy clients. Legacy clients are allowed to
pull liquid changesets, though a round trip will make them frozen.

== Local changesets ==

Local changesets are changesets that are not visible to remote
clients. This is useful to mark work private and to avoid
inadvertently publishing changesets.

=== Usage ===

Local changesets (and their descendents) can be marked with 'hg state --local'.

=== Implementation ===

Like liquid changesets, local changesets are implemented via a local
barrier set. This set is used to filter changesets from remote clients
for push/pull/hgweb. This is probably best implemented via a _local
set on changelog.

=== Legacy clients ===

Legacy clients cannot see local changesets so will not pull them. New
clients will not push local changesets by default

== Dead changesets ==

Dead changesets are changesets that are hidden and are eligible for
garbage collection.

Dead changesets themselves are never pushed or pulled between clients
(they are a subset of local) but deadness of changesets can be
communicated between clients.

If a client has a dead changeset and happens to pull a remote
changeset that is an ancestor of it, the changeset is becomes liquid
or frozen as appropriate.

Garbage collection consists of stripping all dead changesets. When
garbage collection occurs is currently undefined.

=== Usage ===

Commits (and their descendents) can be manually marked dead with 'hg
state --dead'. Some operations like strip, qpop, and rebase may choose
to mark changesets dead rather than actually stripping them.

=== Implementation ===

The dead set is stored as a complete list of all revisions. This
allows dead status to be propagated after garbage collection occurs.
Dead status is communicated via pushkey.

=== Legacy clients ===

Like local changesets, old clients cannot see dead changesets.

== Abandoned changesets ==

Abandoned changesets are changesets that have been marked as 'no
longer relevant'. Like dead changesets, they are hidden, but abandoned
changesets are implemented via markers in history so they are not part
of the states concept.

Abandoned changesets are not pushed or pulled (see the implementation
of local) but are not subject to garbage collection.

Abandoned changesets can be unabandoned by committing new descendants.

=== Usage ===

To mark a branch as abandoned, use 'hg commit --abandon' to abandon
the working directory and its descendants.

=== Implementation ===

The abandon commit contains an explicit list of abandoned changesets.

=== Legacy clients ===

Old clients see abandoned changesets and their marker commits as
normal changesets.

== Obsolete changesets ==

Obsolete changesets are part of an advanced concept ('changeset
evolution') used to automatically resolve and combine refactoring
operations between collaborators using liquid changesets. Like dead
changessets, these are also hidden, but obsolete markers are
implemented as pointers from X' (new changeset) to X (obsolete
changeset) so are again not part of the state concept.

----
CategoryDeveloper
#REDIRECT Phases

StatesPlan (last edited 2012-01-12 00:40:09 by Pierre-YvesDavid)