Hg-Git is the Mercurial extension to use if you want to connect to local or remote Git repositories. I exclusively use Mercurial and Hg-Git for all of my Github transactions, so I can personally vouch that it works.

Now that Hg-Git has been updated to better support Mercurial 1.9, let’s see if we can get an Hg toolchain working on Lion. Since I did that on Snow Leopard a few days ago, Hg-Git has made it into PyPI. The installation instructions this time are a bit more streamlined, because we can now use easy_install to get Hg-Git and its dependencies.

To get the toolchain set up, we’ll need Xcode. The Xcode suite includes tools we’ll need to make Python easy_install work, along with Subversion (a prerequisite for Hgsubversion, which I’ll talk about in a later article) and other useful tools.

The Xcode installation is a multi-step install process. Both current download methods — the developer download through connect.apple.com (if you have a paid Mac Developer Account) and the Mac App Store — give you an “Install Xcode” application. That application runs a second, real installer that you have to finish before you actually have the Xcode tools available in a ready-to-use state. This is very similar to the situation for Mac OS X Lion, so you may be developing a sense of familiarity with the situation.

To install Mercurial:

1. Download Mercurial 1.9.2 or later. The binary packages are standard Mac OS X packages; get the one for Lion.
2. Install Mercurial.

To add Hg-Git to Mercurial on Lion:

1. Download Xcode 4.1 or later if you don’t already have it. You can do this through connect.apple.com or via the Mac App Store.
2. Install Xcode if it is not already installed.
   • Open the developer disk image, run the installer inside it, and then run the “Install Xcode” application that was placed in /Applications.
   • Run the “Install Xcode” application that was placed in /Applications by the Mac App Store.
3. Open Terminal. Run the following command, which will install hg-git and its dependencies (including dulwich, of which you’ll want version 0.8.0 or later):
   
   $ sudo easy_install ‘hg-git>=0.3.1’
   Password:
   Searching for hg-git>=0.3.1
   Reading <a href="http://pypi.python.org/simple/hg-git/
   Reading" title="http://pypi.python.org/simple/hg-git/
   Reading">http://pypi.python.org/simple/hg-git/
   Reading</a> <a href="http://hg-git.github.com/
   Best" title="http://hg-git.github.com/
   Best">http://hg-git.github.com/
   Best</a> match: hg-git 0.3.1
   Downloading <a href="http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/h/hg-git/hg-git-0.3.1.tar.gz#md5=4b15867a07abb0be985177581ce64cee
   Processing" title="http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/h/hg-git/hg-git-0.3.1.tar.gz#md5=4b15867a07abb0be985177581ce64cee
   Processing">http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/h/hg-git/hg-git-0.3.1.tar.gz#md5=…</a> hg-git-0.3.1.tar.gz
   Running hg-git-0.3.1/setup.py -q bdist_egg —dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-_Uauza/hg-git-0.3.1/egg-dist-tmp-rERQMH
   zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents…
   Adding hg-git 0.3.1 to easy-install.pth file
   
   Installed /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/hg_git-0.3.1-py2.7.egg
   Processing dependencies for hg-git>=0.3.1
   Searching for dulwich>=0.8.0
   Reading <a href="http://pypi.python.org/simple/dulwich/
   Reading" title="http://pypi.python.org/simple/dulwich/
   Reading">http://pypi.python.org/simple/dulwich/
   Reading</a> <a href="http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich
   Reading" title="http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich
   Reading">http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich
   Reading</a> <a href="http://launchpad.net/dulwich
   Best" title="http://launchpad.net/dulwich
   Best">http://launchpad.net/dulwich
   Best</a> match: dulwich 0.8.0
   Downloading <a href="http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich/dulwich-0.8.0.tar.gz
   Processing" title="http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich/dulwich-0.8.0.tar.gz
   Processing">http://samba.org/~jelmer/dulwich/dulwich-0.8.0.tar.gz
   Processing</a> dulwich-0.8.0.tar.gz
   Running dulwich-0.8.0/setup.py -q bdist_egg —dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-bHRaTM/dulwich-0.8.0/egg-dist-tmp-MNy6RK
   dulwich/_objects.c: In function ‘py_parse_tree’:
   dulwich/_objects.c:101: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_objects.c: In function ‘cmp_tree_item’:
   dulwich/_objects.c:148: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_objects.c:152: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_objects.c: In function ‘py_sorted_tree_items’:
   dulwich/_objects.c:192: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_objects.c:224: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_pack.c: In function ‘py_apply_delta’:
   dulwich/_pack.c:98: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   dulwich/_pack.c:101: warning: implicit conversion shortens 64-bit value into a 32-bit value
   zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents…
   dulwich.tests.__init__: module references __file__
   dulwich.tests.test_index: module references __file__
   dulwich.tests.test_objects: module references __file__
   dulwich.tests.test_pack: module references __file__
   dulwich.tests.utils: module references __file__
   Adding dulwich 0.8.0 to easy-install.pth file
   Installing dul-daemon script to /usr/local/bin
   Installing dul-web script to /usr/local/bin
   Installing dulwich script to /usr/local/bin
   
   Installed /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/dulwich-0.8.0-py2.7-macosx-10.7-intel.egg
   Finished processing dependencies for hg-git>=0.3.1
4. Edit your ~/.hgrc to enable the Hg-Git Mercurial extension, as noted in the Hg-Git documentation.
   
   [extensions]
   hgext.bookmarks =
   hggit =

That’s it! Once Mercurial 1.9 plus Hg-Git 0.3.1 or later are installed and you’ve enabled Hg-Git in your ~/.hgrc, you are ready to use Mercurial with local and remote Git repositories.