Revision Control

Mercurial – distributed source control management tool

Mercurial is a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system designed for efficient handling of very large distributed projects.

Mercurial’s major design goals include high performance and scalability, decentralized, fully distributed collaborative development, robust handling of both plain text and binary files, and advanced branching and merging capabilities, while remaining conceptually simple.

The software includes an integrated stand-alone web interface.

Mercurial is used by a number of large projects that require fast, reliable distributed revision control, such as Xen, OpenSolaris, Python and MoinMoin.

Features include:

  • Extremely high-performance delta-compressed storage scheme.
  • Scales very easily.
  • Lightweight.
  • Optimized for disk layout and access efficiency.
  • Complete cross-indexing of files and changesets.
  • O(1) delta-compressed file storage and retrieval scheme.
  • Bandwidth and CPU efficient HTTP and SSH sync protocols.
  • High-speed HTTP-based network merge protocol.
  • Complete cross-indexing of files and changesets for efficient exploration of project history.
  • Robust SHA1-based integrity checking and append-only storage model.
  • Distributed development model supports unlimited numbers of developers.
  • Allows arbitrary merging between developer branches.
  • Doesn’t significantly degrade with large numbers of files or changesets.
  • No waiting for locks.
  • SHA1 integrity checking on repository data.
  • Append-only storage model with transaction journalling.
  • Fast full-repository verification.
  • Convenient backup.
  • Most commands are familiar to users of CVS and other systems.
  • Built-in command help.
  • Integrated stand-alone web interface.
  • Works with various GUI tools.
  • Small Python codebase.
  • Easy to customize.

Website: www.mercurial-scm.org
Support: Documentation
Developer: Matt Mackall
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Mercurial is written in Python, C, and Rust. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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