mercurial/helptext/evolution.txt
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     1 Obsolescence markers make it possible to mark changesets that have been
       
     2 deleted or superseded in a new version of the changeset.
       
     3 
       
     4 Unlike the previous way of handling such changes, by stripping the old
       
     5 changesets from the repository, obsolescence markers can be propagated
       
     6 between repositories. This allows for a safe and simple way of exchanging
       
     7 mutable history and altering it after the fact. Changeset phases are
       
     8 respected, such that only draft and secret changesets can be altered (see
       
     9 :hg:`help phases` for details).
       
    10 
       
    11 Obsolescence is tracked using "obsolescence markers", a piece of metadata
       
    12 tracking which changesets have been made obsolete, potential successors for
       
    13 a given changeset, the moment the changeset was marked as obsolete, and the
       
    14 user who performed the rewriting operation. The markers are stored
       
    15 separately from standard changeset data can be exchanged without any of the
       
    16 precursor changesets, preventing unnecessary exchange of obsolescence data.
       
    17 
       
    18 The complete set of obsolescence markers describes a history of changeset
       
    19 modifications that is orthogonal to the repository history of file
       
    20 modifications. This changeset history allows for detection and automatic
       
    21 resolution of edge cases arising from multiple users rewriting the same part
       
    22 of history concurrently.
       
    23 
       
    24 Current feature status
       
    25 ======================
       
    26 
       
    27 This feature is still in development.
       
    28 
       
    29 Instability
       
    30 ===========
       
    31 
       
    32 Rewriting changesets might introduce instability.
       
    33 
       
    34 There are two main kinds of instability: orphaning and diverging.
       
    35 
       
    36 Orphans are changesets left behind when their ancestors are rewritten.
       
    37 Divergence has two variants:
       
    38 
       
    39 * Content-divergence occurs when independent rewrites of the same changesets
       
    40   lead to different results.
       
    41 
       
    42 * Phase-divergence occurs when the old (obsolete) version of a changeset
       
    43   becomes public.
       
    44 
       
    45 It is possible to prevent local creation of orphans by using the following config::
       
    46 
       
    47     [experimental]
       
    48     evolution.createmarkers = true
       
    49     evolution.exchange = true
       
    50 
       
    51 You can also enable that option explicitly::
       
    52 
       
    53     [experimental]
       
    54     evolution.createmarkers = true
       
    55     evolution.exchange = true
       
    56     evolution.allowunstable = true