What is a branch?

[Martin Geisler]

Yao Zhang <yaoz39 at gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:24:09AM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
>  
>> Let's say I'm on tip (HEAD off the development tree) I want to start
>> to freeze the development to release version 2.0. In cvs this would
>> be done with "cvs tag -b" which makes the branch and tags it (thats
>> like named branches in hg).
>> 
>> Now, how is this done in hg?
>
> For example, you are at changeset Cf, which is the freeze point,
>     ... -> Cf
> subsequent changeset on the development tree will be Cd1, Cd2, etc.
>     ... -> Cf -> Cd1 -> Cd2 -> ...      (development trunk)
> To go back to the freeze point and make a branch leading to 2.0
> release,
>     hg update -C Cf             # go back to the freeze point
>     hg branch v2                # start a new branch name "v2"
>                                 # make changes in working directory
>     hg commit -m "Changes leading to v2 release."   # changeset Cb1 in branch
> Now the history looks like
>     ... -> Cf -> Cd1 -> Cd2 -> ...      (development trunk)
>             \
>              -> Cb1 -> ...              (branch leading to 2.0)

I have not used named braches so far and I am still trying to understand
what they buy me over using more clones. So I am following this
discussion with interest...

What does a brach give in the situation above that I wouldn't get by
just committing another child revision to Cf, and thereby creating two
heads in the repository?

Is the point that by changing the branch name, I label changesets Cb1,
Cb2, etc., and then it will be easier to see where changes come from
when I merge these changesets with the development trunk?

-- 
Martin Geisler

VIFF (Virtual Ideal Functionality Framework) brings easy and efficient
SMPC (Secure Multi-Party Computation) to Python. See: http://viff.dk/.
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