Short version (rename from $OLD to $NEW):
ROOT="$(hg id -qr 'first(roots(branch('$OLD')))')" MSG="$(hg log -r $ROOT -T '{desc}')" hg update $ROOT hg branch $NEW hg commit --amend -m "$MSG" hg evolve --all
Mercurial records in which named branch a commit was created. This can be inconvenient when you choose temporary branch names like "foo" or "justworkdamnit".
The evolve extension enables safe, collaborative history editing which removes this inconvenience while preserving the reliability guarantees of Mercurial.
Here I show in a quick example how to rename a branch in Mercurial using the evolve extension.
You can use this method for all changes which you did not transfer elsewhere yet (they must be in draft or secret phase).
Note (2016): The evolve extension is still in testing. Do not use it for production yet. If you want to help stabilizing it, please join evolve-testers. I’ve been using it for more than a year, but I know how to fix things when I hit a bug in the evolve extension.
hg clone https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/evolve/ ~/.local/share/hgext-evolve
echo "[extensions]
evolve = ~/.local/share/hgext-evolve/hgext/evolve.py" >> ~/.hgrc
hg init foo cd foo echo 1 > 1 hg ci -Am 1 echo stable > 1 hg branch stapling hg ci -m stable # add a second commit to the branch # to make this non-trivial echo stable2 > 1 hg ci -m stable2
# amend the first revision in the branch hg up -r "first(branch(stapling))" hg branch stable hg ci --amend -m stable # (notes that there is an unstable changeset) # evolve the history hg evolve
hg log -G
That’s it.
@ changeset: 5:1822f3b02b72
| branch: stable
| tag: tip
| user: Freenet
| date: Fri Nov 18 00:56:57 2016 +0100
| summary: stable2
|
o changeset: 4:d47764612e1a
| branch: stable
| parent: 0:d2b5bb69b11b
| user: Freenet
| date: Fri Nov 18 00:56:56 2016 +0100
| summary: stable
|
o changeset: 0:d2b5bb69b11b
user: Freenet
date: Fri Nov 18 00:56:55 2016 +0100
summary: 1
☺ Yay! ☺
Happy Hacking!
PS: If you want to share this: Short on GNU social
PPS: If you want to tweet this:
hg branch name O→N
— ((λ()'ArneBab)) (@ArneBab) November 18, 2016
I="$(hg id -qr 'first(branch('$O'))')"
M="$(hg log -r $I -T' {desc}')"
hg up $I
hg branch $N
hg ci --amend -m "$M"
hg ev
PPPS: For efficient collaboration via Mercurial see the complete branching strategy.