I'm trying to get Mercurial to ignore a configuration file, but I'm failing to get it working.
I have created a repository on my server with hg init
and cloned that repository to my computer. I then want to be able to edit the configurationj file but not commit those changes back to the server.
I have tried creating a .hgignore
in the root of my clone, but Mercurial flags the file with a ?
and whether I commit it or not it still continues to log my configuration changes.
Am I creating the .hgignore
file in the wrong place, does this file need to be commited? Does it need to be created before I init the repository on the server?
Simple example.
Init the repo:
Create a file
Now create a .hgignore, in the root directory of your repo:
foo
is now ignored:Note that .hgignore does not need to be committed for this to work.
A bit more tricky
If both the config file and a .hgignore (ignoring the config file) are committed in the repo, then yes, the config file changes will be tracked (in other words, .hgignore will have no effect)
Creating config and commit it
Ignore it:
Commit .hgignore:
Then if you clone the repo:
and modify config:
then hg will show the changes:
How to deal with this?
You probably want to have a main default configuration file, that is versioned, in the repository,
global.cfg
And you will ask users to create a
local.cfg
where they will put their local settings. And your script will source thelocal.cfg
if present: the local settings override the global ones. Of course, add a line to.hgignore
to ignorelocal.cfg
;)Alternative: no global config file, only a
config.example
that users copy and modify locally. The con here is that you will not keep track easily of changes between versions.Even if you have ignored files, Mercurial will track them once they have been added to the repository.
To remove your config file from the repository, you can use
This will remove the file from from the repository (once committed) without deleting your local file. See
hg help remove
However, there is now a delete recorded in the repo, and Mercurial will remove that file when your or anyone else updates across that revision.You could also rename it and have people copy the master to their local file, but you will need to coordinate updates of the local file.
Add the .hgignore file itself to the .hgignore file:
or, just check the .hgignore file in to your local clone...