How to set up for selective pushing with Mercurial?

Question

I have a situation, when I'm working on a project, but at same time small issues arise which require quick fix. I would like to push just the fixes for these problems to the main repo while keeping the rest locally. Problem is that, as I've already found out, it's not possible to cherry pick changsets when pushing from my repository upwards.

So the question is, how to set up my Hg environment to have such a possibility. I want to preserve all the Hg metadata, so sending patches around is not a option.

BTW, if the whole thing can be managed directly from MercurialEclipse, that would be a big plus.

Answer 1

I think, we should do it like this:

1. clone the main repository (again)
2. apply your fixes, check in sources locally
3. push the changes back to main
4. delete the clone (we don't need it anymore, so we delete it as soon as possible)
5. synchronize your other repo with main (merge locally)

Answer 2

This is exactly what branches are for -- use them. In this case, I would be developing in my branch while the main line of development was in default. Keep your fixes cleanly in the right branch, merge as necessary. If it is the sort of app where breaking flow and doing a hg update hurts, just keep 2 distinct copies locally, pointed at appropriate branches. Working on a hotfix is as expensive as another instance of the IDE.

Answer 3

If cloning remotely really does take too long, then this (based on Adreas_D's answer) could be much faster:

1. Clone your local repo.
2. Copy the hgrc from your local repo to your local clone (this will make the default path the same for both repos, so push/pull/incoming/outgoing will all point at the server)
3. Update to the tip of your remote repo.
4. Apply the fix and commit.
5. Strip the changesets that you don't want to push (this may require you to enable the mercurial queues extension).
6. Push the changes back up to the remote repo.
7. Delete the clone (or keep it around so that you can do this type of fix more quickly in the future).
8. Pull changes from the remote repo into your normal local repo and merge.

Alternatively, consider a workflow using named branches. That way, you can push your branch changesets up to the server whenever you like, as they won't become part of the default branch until they are explicitly merged in.

Answer 4

Mercurial Queues is the easiest and fastest way: 1. You have not create (and work with) additional (even local) clone 2. You have all non-bugfix changes stored only locally (in your repo)

Another solutions (acceptable) can be - Named branches (for "work-in-progress"); - LocalBranch extension.

Answer 5

After spotting this answer to this question, it looks like there is another option.

If you do hg push -r . then it will push the parent of the current working copy and all of it's ancestors, but nothing else. Using this, you could:

1. Commit or shelve any uncommitted changes.
2. Update to the tip of your remote repo.
3. Apply the fix and commit.
4. Push the just those changes back up to the remote repo.
5. Update back to your local head.
6. Merge in the bug fix.

Answer 6

The quick method would be : - to update to the last stable production changeset;

• Make the change, then commit the change;

• Create a version tag;

• Export the patch;

• Update to the working changeset;

• Merge the working changeset with the tag previously create to bring back the fix;

For more detail see http://hginit.com/05.html