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Mercurial is continually subjected to a large suite of regression tests, so it is generally safe to test any version of Mercurial, including unreleased development versions.
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== Support and obsolescence == == Release timing, support and obsolescence ==

New major releases are made three times per year, in March, July, and November, generally on the 1st of the month. Minor releases are made every month between major releases or more often as required.
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== Testing unreleased features and bugfixes ==

Mercurial is continually subjected to a large suite of regression tests, so it is generally safe to test any version of Mercurial, including unreleased development versions. Bugfixes are generally committed to the "stable" branch of the [[DeveloperRepos|Mercurial repository]] and are generally included in the "nightly builds" found on our [[Downloads|downloads]] page.

Features are developed in the "default" branch of the Mercurial repository and will show up in nightly builds two weeks before each major release during our feature freeze.
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 * Details on our [[TimeBasedReleasePlan|time-based release plan]]

Upgrading Mercurial

Notes on upgrading Mercurial.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Multiple client versions on a shared disk
  3. Third-party or custom extensions and Python hooks
  4. Release timing, support and obsolescence
  5. Testing unreleased features and bugfixes
  6. See also

1. Introduction

Mercurial is designed to be painless to upgrade. This means:

  • existing repositories will continue to be usable
  • existing configuration will continue to work
  • existing usage patterns will continue to work
  • existing automation based on Mercurial's command-line interface will continue to work
  • new clients will interoperate with old servers
  • new servers will interoperate with old clients

Any changes that break these rules will be listed in our upgrade notes and will generally be very minor.

There are two notable areas where you may encounter problems between major releases (ie 1.6 to 1.7):

  • multiple client versions on a shared disk
  • third-party or custom extensions and Python hooks

2. Multiple client versions on a shared disk

New clients, by default, will create new repositories with all current features enabled. If multiple users are using different client versions on a shared disk (ie NFS or Windows share), old clients may report "requirement not supported" when trying to read directly from these repositories. To avoid this issue, there are three approaches:

  • only use old clients to create new repositories

  • use settings in the "format" section of 'hgrc' to disable new repository features

  • use hg serve / hg pull to 'convert' new repositories back to the old format

3. Third-party or custom extensions and Python hooks

Unlike Mercurial's command line interface, Mercurial's internal interfaces may change significantly between major releases. This may require upgrading any third-party extensions you are using.

If you have custom extensions or hooks written in Python, you may need to modify them when upgrading to a new major release. See API changes for details.

4. Release timing, support and obsolescence

New major releases are made three times per year, in March, July, and November, generally on the 1st of the month. Minor releases are made every month between major releases or more often as required.

Because of our focus on painless backward-compatibility, we do not do continued maintenance on old releases. We encourage all users to upgrade to the latest major release when they encounter problems.

5. Testing unreleased features and bugfixes

Mercurial is continually subjected to a large suite of regression tests, so it is generally safe to test any version of Mercurial, including unreleased development versions. Bugfixes are generally committed to the "stable" branch of the Mercurial repository and are generally included in the "nightly builds" found on our downloads page.

Features are developed in the "default" branch of the Mercurial repository and will show up in nightly builds two weeks before each major release during our feature freeze.

6. See also

CategoryProject

UpgradingMercurial (last edited 2014-09-17 19:41:04 by mpm)