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1 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="help.css"/>
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2
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3
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4 <h2>What is a repository?</h2>
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5
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6 <p>When you use a version control system to keep track of your changes to
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7 a set of files, there are two different concepts you're dealing with:
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8 a <i>working copy</i> and a <i>repository</i>.</p>
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9
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10 <p>A <i>working copy</i> is just a folder with your project's files in it. It
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11 contains the versions of the files that you are working with now.
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12 <ul><li>EasyMercurial's “My Work” tab shows you which files you have been working on in your current working copy.</li></ul></p>
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13
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14 <p>A <i>repository</i> is a record of the entire history of your project. When
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15 change something in the working copy, you can then commit it to the
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16 repository and your change gets added to the history.
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17 <ul><li>EasyMercurial's “History” tab shows you the changes that have been committed to your project's history in its repository.</li></ul></p>
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18
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19 <p>You can also go back and grab an older version from the repository if
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20 you find you need it. (If you do this, then the working copy will be
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21 updated so as to contain that older version rather than the most
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22 recent one.)</p>
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23
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24 <p>Older centralised version control systems use a separate database for
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25 the repository. But with a distributed version control system such as
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26 Mercurial, the repository – the entire history of your project files
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27 – is stowed into a special folder inside the working copy on your
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28 hard drive. Every change you commit gets added to the history in that
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29 hidden folder. (The history is compressed, so it doesn't take as much
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30 space as you might imagine.)</p>
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31
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32 <p>The term <i>remote repository</i> simply refers to a repository related to
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33 your local one, but stored on another computer somewhere else. Often
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34 this may be a “master copy” of your project stored on a server
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35 elsewhere, which you and your collaborators can use to keep up with
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36 each other's work, or which you can use to make your work public, or
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37 simply use as a private backup.</p>
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38
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