Tracking branches for Mercurial

Question

As a Git user, I find it inconvenient to set up multiple directories for multiple Mercurial remote repositories, as I want to quickly switch between them, especially when working in an IDE.

I'm trying to somehow replicate the remote branches system from git, where I can simply switch between branches and push to the one I choose.

How can I easily track multiple remote branches in the same directory with Mercurial?

Answer 1

I am not a Mercurial guru, but this is the method I would try.

There is no direct method of doing this with Mercurial, but it can be accomplished using a combination of:

1. The bookmarks extension
2. Path entries in your hgrc file

The initial setup would require you to:

1. Set your default path for pull to '.' (to prevent accidentally pushing to the wrong tracking branch when hg push is invoked with no arguments)
2. Create a bookmark at your tip to represent the tip of master (in Git speak)

Then when you want to track a new remote:

1. Create a path entry in your hgrc for the remote
2. Create a bookmark for the remote

With that done your can do things like:

hg update tracking_branch_1  
hg pull remote_1  

...review the branch and decide if you want to merge...then

hg update master
hg merge tracking_branch_1