revlog: change generaldelta delta parent heuristic The old generaldelta heuristic was "if p1 (or p2) was closer than the last full text, use it, otherwise use prev". This was problematic when a repo contained multiple branches that were very different. If commits to branch A were pushed, and the last full text was branch B, it would generate a fulltext. Then if branch B was pushed, it would generate another fulltext. The problem is that the last fulltext (and delta'ing against `prev` in general) has no correlation with the contents of the incoming revision, and therefore will always have degenerate cases. According to the blame, that algorithm was chosen to minimize the chain length. Since there is already code that protects against that (the delta-vs-fulltext code), and since it has been improved since the original generaldelta algorithm went in (2011), I believe the chain length criteria will still be preserved. The new algorithm always diffs against p1 (or p2 if it's closer), unless the resulting delta will fail the delta-vs-fulltext check, in which case we delta against prev. Some before and after stats on manifest.d size. internal large repo old heuristic - 2.0 GB new heuristic - 1.2 GB mozilla-central old heuristic - 242 MB new heuristic - 261 MB The regression in mozilla central is due to the new heuristic choosing p2r as the delta when it's closer to the tip. Switching the algorithm to always prefer p1r brings the size back down (242 MB). This is result of the way in which mozilla does merges and pushes, and the result could easily swing the other direction in other repos (depending on if they merge X into Y or Y into X), but will never be as degenerate as before. I future patch will address the regression by introducing an optional, even more aggressive delta heuristic which will knock the mozilla manifest size down dramatically.

Mercurial supports several ways to specify individual revisions.

A plain integer is treated as a revision number. Negative integers are
treated as sequential offsets from the tip, with -1 denoting the tip,
-2 denoting the revision prior to the tip, and so forth.

A 40-digit hexadecimal string is treated as a unique revision
identifier.

A hexadecimal string less than 40 characters long is treated as a
unique revision identifier and is referred to as a short-form
identifier. A short-form identifier is only valid if it is the prefix
of exactly one full-length identifier.

Any other string is treated as a bookmark, tag, or branch name. A
bookmark is a movable pointer to a revision. A tag is a permanent name
associated with a revision. A branch name denotes the tipmost open branch head
of that branch - or if they are all closed, the tipmost closed head of the
branch. Bookmark, tag, and branch names must not contain the ":" character.

The reserved name "tip" always identifies the most recent revision.

The reserved name "null" indicates the null revision. This is the
revision of an empty repository, and the parent of revision 0.

The reserved name "." indicates the working directory parent. If no
working directory is checked out, it is equivalent to null. If an
uncommitted merge is in progress, "." is the revision of the first
parent.