annotate notes.txt @ 3355:c10eacad7171

gitweb: fix last change field in summary
author Brendan Cully <brendan@kublai.com>
date Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:32:06 -0700
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1 Some notes about Mercurial's design
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2
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3 Revlogs:
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4
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5 The fundamental storage type in Mercurial is a "revlog". A revlog is
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6 the set of all revisions to a file. Each revision is either stored
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7 compressed in its entirety or as a compressed binary delta against the
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8 previous version. The decision of when to store a full version is made
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9 based on how much data would be needed to reconstruct the file. This
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10 lets us ensure that we never need to read huge amounts of data to
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11 reconstruct a file, regardless of how many revisions of it we store.
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12
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13 In fact, we should always be able to do it with a single read,
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14 provided we know when and where to read. This is where the index comes
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15 in. Each revlog has an index containing a special hash (nodeid) of the
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16 text, hashes for its parents, and where and how much of the revlog
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17 data we need to read to reconstruct it. Thus, with one read of the
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18 index and one read of the data, we can reconstruct any version in time
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19 proportional to the file size.
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20
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21 Similarly, revlogs and their indices are append-only. This means that
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22 adding a new version is also O(1) seeks.
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23
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24 Generally revlogs are used to represent revisions of files, but they
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25 also are used to represent manifests and changesets.
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26
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27 Manifests:
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28
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29 A manifest is simply a list of all files in a given revision of a
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30 project along with the nodeids of the corresponding file revisions. So
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31 grabbing a given version of the project means simply looking up its
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32 manifest and reconstruction all the file revisions pointed to by it.
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33
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34 Changesets:
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35
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36 A changeset is a list of all files changed in a check-in along with a
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37 change description and some metadata like user and date. It also
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38 contains a nodeid to the relevent revision of the manifest. Changesets
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39 and manifests are one-to-one, but contain different data for
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40 convenience.
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41
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42 Nodeids:
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43
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44 Nodeids are unique ids that are used to represent the contents of a
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45 file AND its position in the project history. That is, if you change a
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46 file and then change it back, the result will have a different nodeid
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47 because it has different history. This is accomplished by including
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48 the parents of a given revision's nodeids with the revision's text
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49 when calculating the hash.
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50
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51 Graph merging:
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52
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53 Nodeids are implemented as they are to simplify merging. Merging a
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54 pair of directed acyclic graphs (aka "the family tree" of the file
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55 history) requires some method of determining if nodes in different
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56 graphs correspond. Simply comparing the contents of the node (by
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57 comparing text of given revisions or their hashes) can get confused by
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58 identical revisions in the tree.
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59
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60 The nodeid approach makes it trivial - the hash uniquely describes a
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61 revision's contents and its graph position relative to the root, so
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62 merge is simply checking whether each nodeid in graph A is in the hash
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63 table of graph B. If not, we pull them in, adding them sequentially to
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64 the revlog.
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65
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66 Branching and merging:
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67
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68 Everything in Mercurial is potentially a branch and every user
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69 effectively works in their own branch. When you do a checkout,
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70 Mercurial remembers what the parent changeset was and uses it for the
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71 next check in.
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72
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73 To do a merge of branches in Mercurial, you check out the heads of the
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74 two branches into the same working directory which causes a merge to
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75 be performed, and then check in the result once you're happy with it.
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76 The resulting checkin will have two parents.
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77
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78 It decides when a merge is necessary by first determining if there are
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79 any uncommitted changes in the working directory. This effectively
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80 makes the working directory a branch off the checked in version it's
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81 based on. Then it also determines if the working directory is a direct
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82 ancestor or descendent of the second version we're attempting to
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83 checkout. If neither is true, we simply replace the working directory
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84 version with the new version. Otherwise we perform a merge between the
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85 two versions.
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86
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87 Merging files and manifests:
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88
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89 We begin by comparing two versions manifests and deciding which files
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90 need to be added, deleted, and merged.
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91
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92 Then for each file, we perform a graph merge and resolve as above.
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93 It's important to merge files using per-file DAGs rather than just
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94 changeset level DAGs as this diagram illustrates:
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95
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96 M M1 M2
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97
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98 AB
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99 |`-------v M2 clones M
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100 aB AB file A is change in mainline
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101 |`---v AB' file B is changed in M2
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102 | aB / | M1 clones M
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103 | ab/ | M1 changes B
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104 | ab' | M1 merges from M2, changes to B conflict
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105 | | A'B' M2 changes A
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106 `---+--.|
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107 | a'B' M2 merges from mainline, changes to A conflict
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108 `--.|
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109 ??? depending on which ancestor we choose, we will have
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110 to redo A hand-merge, B hand-merge, or both
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111 but if we look at the files independently, everything
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112 is fine
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113
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114 The result is a merged version in the working directory, waiting for
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115 check-in.
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116
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117 Rollback:
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118
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119 When performing a commit or a merge, we order things so that the
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120 changeset entry gets added last. We keep a transaction log of the name
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121 of each file touched and its length prior to the transaction. On
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122 abort, we simply truncate each file to its prior length. This is one
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123 of the nice properties of the append-only structure of the revlogs.
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124 We can also reuse this journal for "rollback".
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125
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126 Merging between repositories:
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127
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128 One of the key features of Mercurial is the ability to merge between
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129 independent repositories in a decentralized fashion. Each repository
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130 can act as a read-only server or a client. Clients operating by
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131 pulling all branches that it hasn't seen from the server and adding
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132 them into its graph. This is done in two steps: searching for new
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133 "roots" and pulling a "changegroup"
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134
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135 Searching for new "roots" begins by finding all new heads and
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136 searching backwards from those heads to the first unknown nodes in
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137 their respective branches. These nodes are the 'roots' that are used
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138 to calculate the 'changegroup': the set of all changesets starting at
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139 those roots. Mercurial takes pains to make this search efficient in
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140 both bandwidth and round-trips.
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141
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142 Once the roots are found, the changegroup can be transferred as a
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143 single streaming transfer. This is organized as an ordered set of
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144 deltas for changesets, manifests, and files. Large chunks of deltas
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145 can be directly added to the repository without unpacking so it's
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146 fairly fast.