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     1.5 +
     1.6 +<chapter id="chap:concepts">
     1.7 +  <title>Behind the scenes</title>
     1.8 +
     1.9 +  <para>Unlike many revision control systems, the concepts upon which
    1.10 +    Mercurial is built are simple enough that it's easy to understand
    1.11 +    how the software really works.  Knowing this certainly isn't
    1.12 +    necessary, but I find it useful to have a <quote>mental
    1.13 +      model</quote> of what's going on.</para>
    1.14 +
    1.15 +  <para>This understanding gives me confidence that Mercurial has been
    1.16 +    carefully designed to be both <emphasis>safe</emphasis> and
    1.17 +    <emphasis>efficient</emphasis>.  And just as importantly, if it's
    1.18 +    easy for me to retain a good idea of what the software is doing
    1.19 +    when I perform a revision control task, I'm less likely to be
    1.20 +    surprised by its behaviour.</para>
    1.21 +
    1.22 +  <para>In this chapter, we'll initially cover the core concepts
    1.23 +    behind Mercurial's design, then continue to discuss some of the
    1.24 +    interesting details of its implementation.</para>
    1.25 +
    1.26 +  <sect1>
    1.27 +    <title>Mercurial's historical record</title>
    1.28 +
    1.29 +    <sect2>
    1.30 +      <title>Tracking the history of a single file</title>
    1.31 +
    1.32 +      <para>When Mercurial tracks modifications to a file, it stores
    1.33 +	the history of that file in a metadata object called a
    1.34 +	<emphasis>filelog</emphasis>.  Each entry in the filelog
    1.35 +	contains enough information to reconstruct one revision of the
    1.36 +	file that is being tracked.  Filelogs are stored as files in
    1.37 +	the <filename role="special"
    1.38 +	  class="directory">.hg/store/data</filename> directory.  A
    1.39 +	filelog contains two kinds of information: revision data, and
    1.40 +	an index to help Mercurial to find a revision
    1.41 +	efficiently.</para>
    1.42 +
    1.43 +      <para>A file that is large, or has a lot of history, has its
    1.44 +	filelog stored in separate data
    1.45 +	(<quote><literal>.d</literal></quote> suffix) and index
    1.46 +	(<quote><literal>.i</literal></quote> suffix) files.  For
    1.47 +	small files without much history, the revision data and index
    1.48 +	are combined in a single <quote><literal>.i</literal></quote>
    1.49 +	file.  The correspondence between a file in the working
    1.50 +	directory and the filelog that tracks its history in the
    1.51 +	repository is illustrated in figure <xref
    1.52 +	  linkend="fig:concepts:filelog"/>.</para>
    1.53 +
    1.54 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:filelog">
    1.55 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
    1.56 +				    fileref="filelog"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
    1.57 +	      add text</phrase></textobject>
    1.58 +	  <caption><para>Relationships between files in working
    1.59 +	      directory and filelogs in
    1.60 +	      repository</para></caption></mediaobject>
    1.61 +      </informalfigure>
    1.62 +
    1.63 +    </sect2>
    1.64 +    <sect2>
    1.65 +      <title>Managing tracked files</title>
    1.66 +
    1.67 +      <para>Mercurial uses a structure called a
    1.68 +	<emphasis>manifest</emphasis> to collect together information
    1.69 +	about the files that it tracks.  Each entry in the manifest
    1.70 +	contains information about the files present in a single
    1.71 +	changeset.  An entry records which files are present in the
    1.72 +	changeset, the revision of each file, and a few other pieces
    1.73 +	of file metadata.</para>
    1.74 +
    1.75 +    </sect2>
    1.76 +    <sect2>
    1.77 +      <title>Recording changeset information</title>
    1.78 +
    1.79 +      <para>The <emphasis>changelog</emphasis> contains information
    1.80 +	about each changeset.  Each revision records who committed a
    1.81 +	change, the changeset comment, other pieces of
    1.82 +	changeset-related information, and the revision of the
    1.83 +	manifest to use.</para>
    1.84 +
    1.85 +    </sect2>
    1.86 +    <sect2>
    1.87 +      <title>Relationships between revisions</title>
    1.88 +
    1.89 +      <para>Within a changelog, a manifest, or a filelog, each
    1.90 +	revision stores a pointer to its immediate parent (or to its
    1.91 +	two parents, if it's a merge revision).  As I mentioned above,
    1.92 +	there are also relationships between revisions
    1.93 +	<emphasis>across</emphasis> these structures, and they are
    1.94 +	hierarchical in nature.</para>
    1.95 +
    1.96 +      <para>For every changeset in a repository, there is exactly one
    1.97 +	revision stored in the changelog.  Each revision of the
    1.98 +	changelog contains a pointer to a single revision of the
    1.99 +	manifest.  A revision of the manifest stores a pointer to a
   1.100 +	single revision of each filelog tracked when that changeset
   1.101 +	was created.  These relationships are illustrated in figure
   1.102 +	<xref linkend="fig:concepts:metadata"/>.</para>
   1.103 +
   1.104 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:metadata">
   1.105 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.106 +				    fileref="metadata"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.107 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>Metadata
   1.108 +	      relationships</para></caption>
   1.109 +	</mediaobject>
   1.110 +      </informalfigure>
   1.111 +
   1.112 +      <para>As the illustration shows, there is
   1.113 +	<emphasis>not</emphasis> a <quote>one to one</quote>
   1.114 +	relationship between revisions in the changelog, manifest, or
   1.115 +	filelog. If the manifest hasn't changed between two
   1.116 +	changesets, the changelog entries for those changesets will
   1.117 +	point to the same revision of the manifest.  If a file that
   1.118 +	Mercurial tracks hasn't changed between two changesets, the
   1.119 +	entry for that file in the two revisions of the manifest will
   1.120 +	point to the same revision of its filelog.</para>
   1.121 +
   1.122 +    </sect2>
   1.123 +  </sect1>
   1.124 +  <sect1>
   1.125 +    <title>Safe, efficient storage</title>
   1.126 +
   1.127 +    <para>The underpinnings of changelogs, manifests, and filelogs are
   1.128 +      provided by a single structure called the
   1.129 +      <emphasis>revlog</emphasis>.</para>
   1.130 +
   1.131 +    <sect2>
   1.132 +      <title>Efficient storage</title>
   1.133 +
   1.134 +      <para>The revlog provides efficient storage of revisions using a
   1.135 +	<emphasis>delta</emphasis> mechanism.  Instead of storing a
   1.136 +	complete copy of a file for each revision, it stores the
   1.137 +	changes needed to transform an older revision into the new
   1.138 +	revision.  For many kinds of file data, these deltas are
   1.139 +	typically a fraction of a percent of the size of a full copy
   1.140 +	of a file.</para>
   1.141 +
   1.142 +      <para>Some obsolete revision control systems can only work with
   1.143 +	deltas of text files.  They must either store binary files as
   1.144 +	complete snapshots or encoded into a text representation, both
   1.145 +	of which are wasteful approaches.  Mercurial can efficiently
   1.146 +	handle deltas of files with arbitrary binary contents; it
   1.147 +	doesn't need to treat text as special.</para>
   1.148 +
   1.149 +    </sect2>
   1.150 +    <sect2 id="sec:concepts:txn">
   1.151 +      <title>Safe operation</title>
   1.152 +
   1.153 +      <para>Mercurial only ever <emphasis>appends</emphasis> data to
   1.154 +	the end of a revlog file. It never modifies a section of a
   1.155 +	file after it has written it.  This is both more robust and
   1.156 +	efficient than schemes that need to modify or rewrite
   1.157 +	data.</para>
   1.158 +
   1.159 +      <para>In addition, Mercurial treats every write as part of a
   1.160 +	<emphasis>transaction</emphasis> that can span a number of
   1.161 +	files.  A transaction is <emphasis>atomic</emphasis>: either
   1.162 +	the entire transaction succeeds and its effects are all
   1.163 +	visible to readers in one go, or the whole thing is undone.
   1.164 +	This guarantee of atomicity means that if you're running two
   1.165 +	copies of Mercurial, where one is reading data and one is
   1.166 +	writing it, the reader will never see a partially written
   1.167 +	result that might confuse it.</para>
   1.168 +
   1.169 +      <para>The fact that Mercurial only appends to files makes it
   1.170 +	easier to provide this transactional guarantee.  The easier it
   1.171 +	is to do stuff like this, the more confident you should be
   1.172 +	that it's done correctly.</para>
   1.173 +
   1.174 +    </sect2>
   1.175 +    <sect2>
   1.176 +      <title>Fast retrieval</title>
   1.177 +
   1.178 +      <para>Mercurial cleverly avoids a pitfall common to all earlier
   1.179 +	revision control systems: the problem of <emphasis>inefficient
   1.180 +	  retrieval</emphasis>. Most revision control systems store
   1.181 +	the contents of a revision as an incremental series of
   1.182 +	modifications against a <quote>snapshot</quote>.  To
   1.183 +	reconstruct a specific revision, you must first read the
   1.184 +	snapshot, and then every one of the revisions between the
   1.185 +	snapshot and your target revision.  The more history that a
   1.186 +	file accumulates, the more revisions you must read, hence the
   1.187 +	longer it takes to reconstruct a particular revision.</para>
   1.188 +
   1.189 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:snapshot">
   1.190 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.191 +				    fileref="snapshot"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.192 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>Snapshot of
   1.193 +	      a revlog, with incremental
   1.194 +	      deltas</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.195 +      </informalfigure>
   1.196 +
   1.197 +      <para>The innovation that Mercurial applies to this problem is
   1.198 +	simple but effective.  Once the cumulative amount of delta
   1.199 +	information stored since the last snapshot exceeds a fixed
   1.200 +	threshold, it stores a new snapshot (compressed, of course),
   1.201 +	instead of another delta.  This makes it possible to
   1.202 +	reconstruct <emphasis>any</emphasis> revision of a file
   1.203 +	quickly.  This approach works so well that it has since been
   1.204 +	copied by several other revision control systems.</para>
   1.205 +
   1.206 +      <para>Figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:snapshot"/> illustrates
   1.207 +	the idea.  In an entry in a revlog's index file, Mercurial
   1.208 +	stores the range of entries from the data file that it must
   1.209 +	read to reconstruct a particular revision.</para>
   1.210 +
   1.211 +      <sect3>
   1.212 +	<title>Aside: the influence of video compression</title>
   1.213 +
   1.214 +	<para>If you're familiar with video compression or have ever
   1.215 +	  watched a TV feed through a digital cable or satellite
   1.216 +	  service, you may know that most video compression schemes
   1.217 +	  store each frame of video as a delta against its predecessor
   1.218 +	  frame.  In addition, these schemes use <quote>lossy</quote>
   1.219 +	  compression techniques to increase the compression ratio, so
   1.220 +	  visual errors accumulate over the course of a number of
   1.221 +	  inter-frame deltas.</para>
   1.222 +
   1.223 +	<para>Because it's possible for a video stream to <quote>drop
   1.224 +	    out</quote> occasionally due to signal glitches, and to
   1.225 +	  limit the accumulation of artefacts introduced by the lossy
   1.226 +	  compression process, video encoders periodically insert a
   1.227 +	  complete frame (called a <quote>key frame</quote>) into the
   1.228 +	  video stream; the next delta is generated against that
   1.229 +	  frame.  This means that if the video signal gets
   1.230 +	  interrupted, it will resume once the next key frame is
   1.231 +	  received.  Also, the accumulation of encoding errors
   1.232 +	  restarts anew with each key frame.</para>
   1.233 +
   1.234 +      </sect3>
   1.235 +    </sect2>
   1.236 +    <sect2>
   1.237 +      <title>Identification and strong integrity</title>
   1.238 +
   1.239 +      <para>Along with delta or snapshot information, a revlog entry
   1.240 +	contains a cryptographic hash of the data that it represents.
   1.241 +	This makes it difficult to forge the contents of a revision,
   1.242 +	and easy to detect accidental corruption.</para>
   1.243 +
   1.244 +      <para>Hashes provide more than a mere check against corruption;
   1.245 +	they are used as the identifiers for revisions.  The changeset
   1.246 +	identification hashes that you see as an end user are from
   1.247 +	revisions of the changelog.  Although filelogs and the
   1.248 +	manifest also use hashes, Mercurial only uses these behind the
   1.249 +	scenes.</para>
   1.250 +
   1.251 +      <para>Mercurial verifies that hashes are correct when it
   1.252 +	retrieves file revisions and when it pulls changes from
   1.253 +	another repository.  If it encounters an integrity problem, it
   1.254 +	will complain and stop whatever it's doing.</para>
   1.255 +
   1.256 +      <para>In addition to the effect it has on retrieval efficiency,
   1.257 +	Mercurial's use of periodic snapshots makes it more robust
   1.258 +	against partial data corruption.  If a revlog becomes partly
   1.259 +	corrupted due to a hardware error or system bug, it's often
   1.260 +	possible to reconstruct some or most revisions from the
   1.261 +	uncorrupted sections of the revlog, both before and after the
   1.262 +	corrupted section.  This would not be possible with a
   1.263 +	delta-only storage model.</para>
   1.264 +
   1.265 +    </sect2>
   1.266 +  </sect1>
   1.267 +  <sect1>
   1.268 +    <title>Revision history, branching, and merging</title>
   1.269 +
   1.270 +    <para>Every entry in a Mercurial revlog knows the identity of its
   1.271 +      immediate ancestor revision, usually referred to as its
   1.272 +      <emphasis>parent</emphasis>.  In fact, a revision contains room
   1.273 +      for not one parent, but two.  Mercurial uses a special hash,
   1.274 +      called the <quote>null ID</quote>, to represent the idea
   1.275 +      <quote>there is no parent here</quote>.  This hash is simply a
   1.276 +      string of zeroes.</para>
   1.277 +
   1.278 +    <para>In figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:revlog"/>, you can see
   1.279 +      an example of the conceptual structure of a revlog.  Filelogs,
   1.280 +      manifests, and changelogs all have this same structure; they
   1.281 +      differ only in the kind of data stored in each delta or
   1.282 +      snapshot.</para>
   1.283 +
   1.284 +    <para>The first revision in a revlog (at the bottom of the image)
   1.285 +      has the null ID in both of its parent slots.  For a
   1.286 +      <quote>normal</quote> revision, its first parent slot contains
   1.287 +      the ID of its parent revision, and its second contains the null
   1.288 +      ID, indicating that the revision has only one real parent.  Any
   1.289 +      two revisions that have the same parent ID are branches.  A
   1.290 +      revision that represents a merge between branches has two normal
   1.291 +      revision IDs in its parent slots.</para>
   1.292 +
   1.293 +    <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:revlog">
   1.294 +      <mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.295 +				  fileref="revlog"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.296 +	    add text</phrase></textobject></mediaobject>
   1.297 +    </informalfigure>
   1.298 +
   1.299 +  </sect1>
   1.300 +  <sect1>
   1.301 +    <title>The working directory</title>
   1.302 +
   1.303 +    <para>In the working directory, Mercurial stores a snapshot of the
   1.304 +      files from the repository as of a particular changeset.</para>
   1.305 +
   1.306 +    <para>The working directory <quote>knows</quote> which changeset
   1.307 +      it contains.  When you update the working directory to contain a
   1.308 +      particular changeset, Mercurial looks up the appropriate
   1.309 +      revision of the manifest to find out which files it was tracking
   1.310 +      at the time that changeset was committed, and which revision of
   1.311 +      each file was then current.  It then recreates a copy of each of
   1.312 +      those files, with the same contents it had when the changeset
   1.313 +      was committed.</para>
   1.314 +
   1.315 +    <para>The <emphasis>dirstate</emphasis> contains Mercurial's
   1.316 +      knowledge of the working directory.  This details which
   1.317 +      changeset the working directory is updated to, and all of the
   1.318 +      files that Mercurial is tracking in the working
   1.319 +      directory.</para>
   1.320 +
   1.321 +    <para>Just as a revision of a revlog has room for two parents, so
   1.322 +      that it can represent either a normal revision (with one parent)
   1.323 +      or a merge of two earlier revisions, the dirstate has slots for
   1.324 +      two parents.  When you use the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
   1.325 +	update</command> command, the changeset that you update to is
   1.326 +      stored in the <quote>first parent</quote> slot, and the null ID
   1.327 +      in the second. When you <command role="hg-cmd">hg
   1.328 +	merge</command> with another changeset, the first parent
   1.329 +      remains unchanged, and the second parent is filled in with the
   1.330 +      changeset you're merging with.  The <command role="hg-cmd">hg
   1.331 +	parents</command> command tells you what the parents of the
   1.332 +      dirstate are.</para>
   1.333 +
   1.334 +    <sect2>
   1.335 +      <title>What happens when you commit</title>
   1.336 +
   1.337 +      <para>The dirstate stores parent information for more than just
   1.338 +	book-keeping purposes.  Mercurial uses the parents of the
   1.339 +	dirstate as <emphasis>the parents of a new
   1.340 +	  changeset</emphasis> when you perform a commit.</para>
   1.341 +
   1.342 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:wdir">
   1.343 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.344 +				    fileref="wdir"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.345 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>The working
   1.346 +	      directory can have two
   1.347 +	      parents</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.348 +      </informalfigure>
   1.349 +
   1.350 +      <para>Figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:wdir"/> shows the
   1.351 +	normal state of the working directory, where it has a single
   1.352 +	changeset as parent.  That changeset is the
   1.353 +	<emphasis>tip</emphasis>, the newest changeset in the
   1.354 +	repository that has no children.</para>
   1.355 +
   1.356 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:wdir-after-commit">
   1.357 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.358 +				    fileref="wdir-after-commit"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.359 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>The working
   1.360 +	      directory gains new parents after a
   1.361 +	      commit</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.362 +      </informalfigure>
   1.363 +
   1.364 +      <para>It's useful to think of the working directory as
   1.365 +	<quote>the changeset I'm about to commit</quote>.  Any files
   1.366 +	that you tell Mercurial that you've added, removed, renamed,
   1.367 +	or copied will be reflected in that changeset, as will
   1.368 +	modifications to any files that Mercurial is already tracking;
   1.369 +	the new changeset will have the parents of the working
   1.370 +	directory as its parents.</para>
   1.371 +
   1.372 +      <para>After a commit, Mercurial will update the parents of the
   1.373 +	working directory, so that the first parent is the ID of the
   1.374 +	new changeset, and the second is the null ID.  This is shown
   1.375 +	in figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:wdir-after-commit"/>.
   1.376 +	Mercurial
   1.377 +	doesn't touch any of the files in the working directory when
   1.378 +	you commit; it just modifies the dirstate to note its new
   1.379 +	parents.</para>
   1.380 +
   1.381 +    </sect2>
   1.382 +    <sect2>
   1.383 +      <title>Creating a new head</title>
   1.384 +
   1.385 +      <para>It's perfectly normal to update the working directory to a
   1.386 +	changeset other than the current tip.  For example, you might
   1.387 +	want to know what your project looked like last Tuesday, or
   1.388 +	you could be looking through changesets to see which one
   1.389 +	introduced a bug.  In cases like this, the natural thing to do
   1.390 +	is update the working directory to the changeset you're
   1.391 +	interested in, and then examine the files in the working
   1.392 +	directory directly to see their contents as they were when you
   1.393 +	committed that changeset.  The effect of this is shown in
   1.394 +	figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:wdir-pre-branch"/>.</para>
   1.395 +
   1.396 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:wdir-pre-branch">
   1.397 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.398 +				    fileref="wdir-pre-branch"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.399 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>The working
   1.400 +	      directory, updated to an older
   1.401 +	      changeset</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.402 +      </informalfigure>
   1.403 +
   1.404 +      <para>Having updated the working directory to an older
   1.405 +	changeset, what happens if you make some changes, and then
   1.406 +	commit?  Mercurial behaves in the same way as I outlined
   1.407 +	above.  The parents of the working directory become the
   1.408 +	parents of the new changeset.  This new changeset has no
   1.409 +	children, so it becomes the new tip.  And the repository now
   1.410 +	contains two changesets that have no children; we call these
   1.411 +	<emphasis>heads</emphasis>.  You can see the structure that
   1.412 +	this creates in figure <xref
   1.413 +	  linkend="fig:concepts:wdir-branch"/>.</para>
   1.414 +
   1.415 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:wdir-branch">
   1.416 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.417 +				    fileref="wdir-branch"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.418 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>After a
   1.419 +	      commit made while synced to an older
   1.420 +	      changeset</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.421 +      </informalfigure>
   1.422 +
   1.423 +      <note>
   1.424 +	<para>  If you're new to Mercurial, you should keep in mind a
   1.425 +	  common <quote>error</quote>, which is to use the <command
   1.426 +	    role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command> command without any
   1.427 +	  options.  By default, the <command role="hg-cmd">hg
   1.428 +	    pull</command> command <emphasis>does not</emphasis>
   1.429 +	  update the working directory, so you'll bring new changesets
   1.430 +	  into your repository, but the working directory will stay
   1.431 +	  synced at the same changeset as before the pull.  If you
   1.432 +	  make some changes and commit afterwards, you'll thus create
   1.433 +	  a new head, because your working directory isn't synced to
   1.434 +	  whatever the current tip is.</para>
   1.435 +
   1.436 +	<para>  I put the word <quote>error</quote> in quotes because
   1.437 +	  all that you need to do to rectify this situation is
   1.438 +	  <command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command>, then <command
   1.439 +	    role="hg-cmd">hg commit</command>.  In other words, this
   1.440 +	  almost never has negative consequences; it just surprises
   1.441 +	  people.  I'll discuss other ways to avoid this behaviour,
   1.442 +	  and why Mercurial behaves in this initially surprising way,
   1.443 +	  later on.</para>
   1.444 +      </note>
   1.445 +
   1.446 +    </sect2>
   1.447 +    <sect2>
   1.448 +      <title>Merging heads</title>
   1.449 +
   1.450 +      <para>When you run the <command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command>
   1.451 +	command, Mercurial leaves the first parent of the working
   1.452 +	directory unchanged, and sets the second parent to the
   1.453 +	changeset you're merging with, as shown in figure <xref
   1.454 +	  linkend="fig:concepts:wdir-merge"/>.</para>
   1.455 +
   1.456 +      <informalfigure id="fig:concepts:wdir-merge">
   1.457 +	<mediaobject><imageobject><imagedata
   1.458 +				    fileref="wdir-merge"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>XXX 
   1.459 +	      add text</phrase></textobject><caption><para>Merging two
   1.460 +	      heads</para></caption></mediaobject>
   1.461 +      </informalfigure>
   1.462 +
   1.463 +      <para>Mercurial also has to modify the working directory, to
   1.464 +	merge the files managed in the two changesets.  Simplified a
   1.465 +	little, the merging process goes like this, for every file in
   1.466 +	the manifests of both changesets.</para>
   1.467 +      <itemizedlist>
   1.468 +	<listitem><para>If neither changeset has modified a file, do
   1.469 +	    nothing with that file.</para>
   1.470 +	</listitem>
   1.471 +	<listitem><para>If one changeset has modified a file, and the
   1.472 +	    other hasn't, create the modified copy of the file in the
   1.473 +	    working directory.</para>
   1.474 +	</listitem>
   1.475 +	<listitem><para>If one changeset has removed a file, and the
   1.476 +	    other hasn't (or has also deleted it), delete the file
   1.477 +	    from the working directory.</para>
   1.478 +	</listitem>
   1.479 +	<listitem><para>If one changeset has removed a file, but the
   1.480 +	    other has modified the file, ask the user what to do: keep
   1.481 +	    the modified file, or remove it?</para>
   1.482 +	</listitem>
   1.483 +	<listitem><para>If both changesets have modified a file,
   1.484 +	    invoke an external merge program to choose the new
   1.485 +	    contents for the merged file.  This may require input from
   1.486 +	    the user.</para>
   1.487 +	</listitem>
   1.488 +	<listitem><para>If one changeset has modified a file, and the
   1.489 +	    other has renamed or copied the file, make sure that the
   1.490 +	    changes follow the new name of the file.</para>
   1.491 +	</listitem></itemizedlist>
   1.492 +      <para>There are more details&emdash;merging has plenty of corner
   1.493 +	cases&emdash;but these are the most common choices that are
   1.494 +	involved in a merge.  As you can see, most cases are
   1.495 +	completely automatic, and indeed most merges finish
   1.496 +	automatically, without requiring your input to resolve any
   1.497 +	conflicts.</para>
   1.498 +
   1.499 +      <para>When you're thinking about what happens when you commit
   1.500 +	after a merge, once again the working directory is <quote>the
   1.501 +	  changeset I'm about to commit</quote>.  After the <command
   1.502 +	  role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command> command completes, the
   1.503 +	working directory has two parents; these will become the
   1.504 +	parents of the new changeset.</para>
   1.505 +
   1.506 +      <para>Mercurial lets you perform multiple merges, but you must
   1.507 +	commit the results of each individual merge as you go.  This
   1.508 +	is necessary because Mercurial only tracks two parents for
   1.509 +	both revisions and the working directory.  While it would be
   1.510 +	technically possible to merge multiple changesets at once, the
   1.511 +	prospect of user confusion and making a terrible mess of a
   1.512 +	merge immediately becomes overwhelming.</para>
   1.513 +
   1.514 +    </sect2>
   1.515 +  </sect1>
   1.516 +  <sect1>
   1.517 +    <title>Other interesting design features</title>
   1.518 +
   1.519 +    <para>In the sections above, I've tried to highlight some of the
   1.520 +      most important aspects of Mercurial's design, to illustrate that
   1.521 +      it pays careful attention to reliability and performance.
   1.522 +      However, the attention to detail doesn't stop there.  There are
   1.523 +      a number of other aspects of Mercurial's construction that I
   1.524 +      personally find interesting.  I'll detail a few of them here,
   1.525 +      separate from the <quote>big ticket</quote> items above, so that
   1.526 +      if you're interested, you can gain a better idea of the amount
   1.527 +      of thinking that goes into a well-designed system.</para>
   1.528 +
   1.529 +    <sect2>
   1.530 +      <title>Clever compression</title>
   1.531 +
   1.532 +      <para>When appropriate, Mercurial will store both snapshots and
   1.533 +	deltas in compressed form.  It does this by always
   1.534 +	<emphasis>trying to</emphasis> compress a snapshot or delta,
   1.535 +	but only storing the compressed version if it's smaller than
   1.536 +	the uncompressed version.</para>
   1.537 +
   1.538 +      <para>This means that Mercurial does <quote>the right
   1.539 +	  thing</quote> when storing a file whose native form is
   1.540 +	compressed, such as a <literal>zip</literal> archive or a JPEG
   1.541 +	image.  When these types of files are compressed a second
   1.542 +	time, the resulting file is usually bigger than the
   1.543 +	once-compressed form, and so Mercurial will store the plain
   1.544 +	<literal>zip</literal> or JPEG.</para>
   1.545 +
   1.546 +      <para>Deltas between revisions of a compressed file are usually
   1.547 +	larger than snapshots of the file, and Mercurial again does
   1.548 +	<quote>the right thing</quote> in these cases.  It finds that
   1.549 +	such a delta exceeds the threshold at which it should store a
   1.550 +	complete snapshot of the file, so it stores the snapshot,
   1.551 +	again saving space compared to a naive delta-only
   1.552 +	approach.</para>
   1.553 +
   1.554 +      <sect3>
   1.555 +	<title>Network recompression</title>
   1.556 +
   1.557 +	<para>When storing revisions on disk, Mercurial uses the
   1.558 +	  <quote>deflate</quote> compression algorithm (the same one
   1.559 +	  used by the popular <literal>zip</literal> archive format),
   1.560 +	  which balances good speed with a respectable compression
   1.561 +	  ratio.  However, when transmitting revision data over a
   1.562 +	  network connection, Mercurial uncompresses the compressed
   1.563 +	  revision data.</para>
   1.564 +
   1.565 +	<para>If the connection is over HTTP, Mercurial recompresses
   1.566 +	  the entire stream of data using a compression algorithm that
   1.567 +	  gives a better compression ratio (the Burrows-Wheeler
   1.568 +	  algorithm from the widely used <literal>bzip2</literal>
   1.569 +	  compression package).  This combination of algorithm and
   1.570 +	  compression of the entire stream (instead of a revision at a
   1.571 +	  time) substantially reduces the number of bytes to be
   1.572 +	  transferred, yielding better network performance over almost
   1.573 +	  all kinds of network.</para>
   1.574 +
   1.575 +	<para>(If the connection is over <command>ssh</command>,
   1.576 +	  Mercurial <emphasis>doesn't</emphasis> recompress the
   1.577 +	  stream, because <command>ssh</command> can already do this
   1.578 +	  itself.)</para>
   1.579 +
   1.580 +      </sect3>
   1.581 +    </sect2>
   1.582 +    <sect2>
   1.583 +      <title>Read/write ordering and atomicity</title>
   1.584 +
   1.585 +      <para>Appending to files isn't the whole story when it comes to
   1.586 +	guaranteeing that a reader won't see a partial write.  If you
   1.587 +	recall figure <xref linkend="fig:concepts:metadata"/>,
   1.588 +	revisions in the
   1.589 +	changelog point to revisions in the manifest, and revisions in
   1.590 +	the manifest point to revisions in filelogs.  This hierarchy
   1.591 +	is deliberate.</para>
   1.592 +
   1.593 +      <para>A writer starts a transaction by writing filelog and
   1.594 +	manifest data, and doesn't write any changelog data until
   1.595 +	those are finished.  A reader starts by reading changelog
   1.596 +	data, then manifest data, followed by filelog data.</para>
   1.597 +
   1.598 +      <para>Since the writer has always finished writing filelog and
   1.599 +	manifest data before it writes to the changelog, a reader will
   1.600 +	never read a pointer to a partially written manifest revision
   1.601 +	from the changelog, and it will never read a pointer to a
   1.602 +	partially written filelog revision from the manifest.</para>
   1.603 +
   1.604 +    </sect2>
   1.605 +    <sect2>
   1.606 +      <title>Concurrent access</title>
   1.607 +
   1.608 +      <para>The read/write ordering and atomicity guarantees mean that
   1.609 +	Mercurial never needs to <emphasis>lock</emphasis> a
   1.610 +	repository when it's reading data, even if the repository is
   1.611 +	being written to while the read is occurring. This has a big
   1.612 +	effect on scalability; you can have an arbitrary number of
   1.613 +	Mercurial processes safely reading data from a repository
   1.614 +	safely all at once, no matter whether it's being written to or
   1.615 +	not.</para>
   1.616 +
   1.617 +      <para>The lockless nature of reading means that if you're
   1.618 +	sharing a repository on a multi-user system, you don't need to
   1.619 +	grant other local users permission to
   1.620 +	<emphasis>write</emphasis> to your repository in order for
   1.621 +	them to be able to clone it or pull changes from it; they only
   1.622 +	need <emphasis>read</emphasis> permission.  (This is
   1.623 +	<emphasis>not</emphasis> a common feature among revision
   1.624 +	control systems, so don't take it for granted!  Most require
   1.625 +	readers to be able to lock a repository to access it safely,
   1.626 +	and this requires write permission on at least one directory,
   1.627 +	which of course makes for all kinds of nasty and annoying
   1.628 +	security and administrative problems.)</para>
   1.629 +
   1.630 +      <para>Mercurial uses locks to ensure that only one process can
   1.631 +	write to a repository at a time (the locking mechanism is safe
   1.632 +	even over filesystems that are notoriously hostile to locking,
   1.633 +	such as NFS).  If a repository is locked, a writer will wait
   1.634 +	for a while to retry if the repository becomes unlocked, but
   1.635 +	if the repository remains locked for too long, the process
   1.636 +	attempting to write will time out after a while. This means
   1.637 +	that your daily automated scripts won't get stuck forever and
   1.638 +	pile up if a system crashes unnoticed, for example.  (Yes, the
   1.639 +	timeout is configurable, from zero to infinity.)</para>
   1.640 +
   1.641 +      <sect3>
   1.642 +	<title>Safe dirstate access</title>
   1.643 +
   1.644 +	<para>As with revision data, Mercurial doesn't take a lock to
   1.645 +	  read the dirstate file; it does acquire a lock to write it.
   1.646 +	  To avoid the possibility of reading a partially written copy
   1.647 +	  of the dirstate file, Mercurial writes to a file with a
   1.648 +	  unique name in the same directory as the dirstate file, then
   1.649 +	  renames the temporary file atomically to
   1.650 +	  <filename>dirstate</filename>.  The file named
   1.651 +	  <filename>dirstate</filename> is thus guaranteed to be
   1.652 +	  complete, not partially written.</para>
   1.653 +
   1.654 +      </sect3>
   1.655 +    </sect2>
   1.656 +    <sect2>
   1.657 +      <title>Avoiding seeks</title>
   1.658 +
   1.659 +      <para>Critical to Mercurial's performance is the avoidance of
   1.660 +	seeks of the disk head, since any seek is far more expensive
   1.661 +	than even a comparatively large read operation.</para>
   1.662 +
   1.663 +      <para>This is why, for example, the dirstate is stored in a
   1.664 +	single file.  If there were a dirstate file per directory that
   1.665 +	Mercurial tracked, the disk would seek once per directory.
   1.666 +	Instead, Mercurial reads the entire single dirstate file in
   1.667 +	one step.</para>
   1.668 +
   1.669 +      <para>Mercurial also uses a <quote>copy on write</quote> scheme
   1.670 +	when cloning a repository on local storage.  Instead of
   1.671 +	copying every revlog file from the old repository into the new
   1.672 +	repository, it makes a <quote>hard link</quote>, which is a
   1.673 +	shorthand way to say <quote>these two names point to the same
   1.674 +	  file</quote>.  When Mercurial is about to write to one of a
   1.675 +	revlog's files, it checks to see if the number of names
   1.676 +	pointing at the file is greater than one.  If it is, more than
   1.677 +	one repository is using the file, so Mercurial makes a new
   1.678 +	copy of the file that is private to this repository.</para>
   1.679 +
   1.680 +      <para>A few revision control developers have pointed out that
   1.681 +	this idea of making a complete private copy of a file is not
   1.682 +	very efficient in its use of storage.  While this is true,
   1.683 +	storage is cheap, and this method gives the highest
   1.684 +	performance while deferring most book-keeping to the operating
   1.685 +	system.  An alternative scheme would most likely reduce
   1.686 +	performance and increase the complexity of the software, each
   1.687 +	of which is much more important to the <quote>feel</quote> of
   1.688 +	day-to-day use.</para>
   1.689 +
   1.690 +    </sect2>
   1.691 +    <sect2>
   1.692 +      <title>Other contents of the dirstate</title>
   1.693 +
   1.694 +      <para>Because Mercurial doesn't force you to tell it when you're
   1.695 +	modifying a file, it uses the dirstate to store some extra
   1.696 +	information so it can determine efficiently whether you have
   1.697 +	modified a file.  For each file in the working directory, it
   1.698 +	stores the time that it last modified the file itself, and the
   1.699 +	size of the file at that time.</para>
   1.700 +
   1.701 +      <para>When you explicitly <command role="hg-cmd">hg
   1.702 +	  add</command>, <command role="hg-cmd">hg remove</command>,
   1.703 +	<command role="hg-cmd">hg rename</command> or <command
   1.704 +	  role="hg-cmd">hg copy</command> files, Mercurial updates the
   1.705 +	dirstate so that it knows what to do with those files when you
   1.706 +	commit.</para>
   1.707 +
   1.708 +      <para>When Mercurial is checking the states of files in the
   1.709 +	working directory, it first checks a file's modification time.
   1.710 +	If that has not changed, the file must not have been modified.
   1.711 +	If the file's size has changed, the file must have been
   1.712 +	modified.  If the modification time has changed, but the size
   1.713 +	has not, only then does Mercurial need to read the actual
   1.714 +	contents of the file to see if they've changed. Storing these
   1.715 +	few extra pieces of information dramatically reduces the
   1.716 +	amount of data that Mercurial needs to read, which yields
   1.717 +	large performance improvements compared to other revision
   1.718 +	control systems.</para>
   1.719 +
   1.720 +    </sect2>
   1.721 +  </sect1>
   1.722 +</chapter>
   1.723 +
   1.724 +<!--
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