Using Mercurial: Local Repository

Creating a repository

If an Eclipse project already exists: (assume it is present in a directory called myprogram)

cd ~/eclipse_work/myprogram
hg init

The hg init command sets up a local Mercurial repository. Alternatively, if you are using an online repository, to start your project you would begin by cloning the repository. Then you can create a new Eclipse project by importing the directory you set up.

Updating the local repository

Once the local repository is in place, there are two different types of updates to perform. First, files in the directory are not automatically present in the repository. Hence, whenever a new file is added, use the hg add command to add it to the repository. No filename argument is required; every file in the directory not already present in the repository will be added. Once you are ready to commit changes to the local repository, use hg commit. In a multi-person project, use hg commit -u userid; that way, the person who committed changes can be identified readily. Each commit will require a comment describing the changes that have been made. You can view the history of commits using hg log.

Switching back to an old version

If you are unhappy with the current version in your local repository and you would like to revert to an earlier version, you can use hg revert. If, for example, your current revision is version 15, and you would like to revert to version 10, you would type:

hg revert --all --rev 10

This will create "version 16" which is identical to version 10. The --all forces all files to revert; if you only want to revert some of them, list the appropriate filenames.