How to merge in mercurial by TortoiseHG?

Question

I have two machines, window 7 with TortoiseHG 2.6 and Linux with TortoiseHG 1.5. I use bitbucket as a website to hold my centralized repository. The window machine associates with bitbucket user account, Cassie-win and the linux machine associates with bitbucket user account, Cassie-linux. Here are the steps I have performed.

• created a empty centralized repository at butbucket Cassie-linux account
• create two files locally, file1.txt and file2.txt on linux machines and push them to the Cassie-linux account.
• Add user Cassie-win to the repository
• Clone the repository to the window machine, make changes on file2.txt there and push it back to the centralized repository.
• Meanwhile, also make some changes on the file2.txt which is on the linux machine and commit locally
• Then I pull changes from the centralized repository at Cassie-linux account to my local linux machine. Now my linux local repository has two heads because of different contents in file2.txt and I would like to merge them together.

I used the "merge with" tool of TortoiseHG on my linux machine to merge these two heads. However, it kept failing to do so. I tried like a hundreds times and didn't know where I got it wrong. Both file1 and file2 are test files that have only three lines. I also used a command "hg resolve file2.txt" to check the error. However, it only showed that mergeing fails and didn't shown much information. Does anyone know how to use TortoiseHG merge tool to merge two heads ? And what could be the problem to stop TortoiseHG merging two heads ?

I embedded the screenshot which I took on the Linux machine which has TortoiseHg 1.5.

I right clicked the "from Cassie-win account" and it has "merge with" option. Then, I clicked the "merge" option with "merge" tool but it failed with error messages as below.

Thank you very much,

Answer 1

By "merge with" in TortoiseHg, do you mean you tried "Merge with Local" from the context menu of one head after updating your working directory to the other head? If so, you should have seen a wizard taking you through the steps of a merge. TortoiseHg will expect you to intervene if it cannot automatically merge the two heads. Once it asks you to do that, you have a few options including "Mercurial Resolve" and "Tool Resolve." If you could post more details about the errors you see when the merge "fails," we might be able to be more helpful.

Answer 2

First things first: A merge just creates a new file version. You must commit it before it can be seen or pushed to your other repo clones.

Now, if you're doing a merge and the same line, or adjacent lines, have been modified in both merge parents, the automatic merge won't succeed and you'll be asked to choose what to do at each conflict point. Kdiff3, the tool that TortoiseHG uses for merging the files on Windows is not terribly intuitive, so here's an overview:

1. If there are multiple files to merge, you'll see a directory control. Navigate to one of the files and open it so you see two file versions side by side.

2. Depending on the circumstances, you may now have to activate "Merge this file" (in the Merge menu and on the toolbar), which will show you a third version of the file (the merge result) below the other two.

3. You can now navigate from change to change, and click on the A and B buttons to select which change to use. Note that the buttons are toggles, and it is possible to activate both together (to import both versions to the merge). Note also that you'll also see diffs that could be automatically merged. In general you can leave them alone (there are navigation buttons that go directly to the next unresolved diff).

Once you've figured out how to work all this and chosen a version for each diff, you'll be able to save and go on to the next file. When you're done, your merge is ready to commit.

Edit: So you need to do this on the Linux side, and you've got no Kdiff3. Ok, then do it the old-fashioned way: Using the commandline and a regular editor.

1. When a merge fails, the conflicted file turns into a context diff that includes both revisions. Open it with your favorite editor, look at it carefully and clean up each context-diff region (you'll know them when you see them) until you have a clean, usable file just as you want it to be.

2. Exit, drop to the command line and type hg resolve -m file2.txt. This removes the file from the list of conflicts.

3. When you've done this with all conflicted files (you can list them with hg resolve -l) you'll be allowed to commit, and your troubles are over.

PS. If you don't like the merge tools you've got, consider installing kdiff3 (it's available for linux, but no idea how well it works), or p4merge as @LazyBadger suggests.

Answer 3

Side notes

1. You can exchange data between your hosts without "Bitbucket-in-the-middle": just hg serve on both hosts and hg pull <PARTY> on opposite side
2. You could use single BB-account from both our hosts (less management on BB-side) and differentiate source of every changeset in Bitbucket interface only by usernames in changesets

To the question of merges

When (in any SCM) you try to merge two diverged lines of coding, there are two possible cases

• Independent changes are not overlapped and can be combined into common descendant without user's intervention. If this case merge "just happens"
• Changes are intersected and some strings are in conflicted state: i.e we have two different changes for some old data. It this case user's choice is needed and SCM or store merge-result with conflicted parts marked (and note merge as unsucceful and unfinished before appropriate user-action) or run user-defined merge-resolver (read "Visual Merge Tools")

In your situation, obviously, he have second case: some strings from 3 in merge-sources was in conflict and you haven't configured in TortoiseHG Diff/Merge tools (TortoiseHG - Global Setting - TortoiseHG)

Have and add these tools will be best choice for future. Now you have by hand edit file-in-conflict and select correct data in conflicted lines, mark conflict as resolved (check TortoiseHG context menu of file), remove temp-files and, at last, commit merge