mercurial set a branch as the new default branch

Question

The result I would need is that when cloning a repository the code is at the last revision of a branch that is not the default branch, with no need to do "hg update mybranchname". Is this possible?

Maybe a duplication of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5424377/make-another-branch-default — phemios, Jan 21 '12 at 12:24
you're right, the question at the link above is the same of mine. I'm sorry I searched in google but didn't find it. — giuspen, Jan 21 '12 at 13:25

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 23 '12 at 14:06

The advice until now has been: you should always use default as your main branch since Mercurial will checkout default if it finds it in the repository.

This changes a little with Mercurial 2.1: you can now close the default branch (if you have one) and add a bookmark named default in its place. A new clone will retrieve the bookmark and update to it, effectively switching to another branch in the process.

Note that it's your responsibility to keep the default bookmark pointing to the head of the branch you want to checkout, so this is not 100% fool proof.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '12 at 12:18

2

You could merge the branch into the default branch, like:

hg merge mybranchname
hg commit

Now the branch is in effect the main branch. You can hide the old branch with:

hg update mybranchname
hg commit --close-branch

answered Jan 21 '12 at 12:18

Andomar

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so the only way is to merge from the default branch, I cannot leave many branches and set a custom branch as the new default branch? – giuspen Jan 21 '12 at 13:20
Hmm, you can `clone -b mybranchname http://repo.url localdir` to start with "mybranchname" checked out. I don't think there's a way to make "tip" point to another branch, since "tip" is a real branch itself. – Andomar Jan 21 '12 at 14:26
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@Andomar - tip isn't branch, but special bookpark, FYI – Lazy Badger Jan 21 '12 at 15:46
my target is that a user clones all the repos without parameters, and in all repos after cloning he targets the version I want (latest in a branch). I can see the only way to obtain this result is through merge from not default branches to the default branch. thanks for the clarification. – giuspen Jan 21 '12 at 20:35

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '12 at 12:33

-1

By default default branch is not "default", but branch from tip.

Just commit before clone-pull to any existing branch.

answered Jan 21 '12 at 12:33

Lazy Badger

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sorry I didn't understand your answer – giuspen Jan 21 '12 at 13:21
You always commit to the **branch of tip changeset** (if not up before commit to another branch), not to "default" branch – Lazy Badger Jan 21 '12 at 15:48
I already committed hundreds of times on a branch that I would like to become the default branch. I understand this is possible only through a merge to the default branch – giuspen Jan 21 '12 at 20:31
I can't see how this answer relates to the question, nor what it means. – Andreas Covidiot Jan 22 '19 at 14:34

mercurial set a branch as the new default branch

3 Answers3