Create new Mercurial repository from a sub directory of an existing repository

Use the hg convert command to make a new repository from a sub directory and retain the change history.

Create a filemap of the tracked files in the subdirectory to include and and rename the files in the new repo.

This is on OS X but should work on other *nix with awk/gawk/equivalent to assist creating the filemap.

UPDATE 2015-09-29: the code now works with a sub directory name that contains space characters.

# cd to the full repo directory
cd path/to/full_repo

# export tracked files in sub directory by creating a filemap
export SUBDIR=name_of_subdir
hg locate -I "$SUBDIR" | awk '{print "include \"" $1 "\"";}' > ../filemap.txt
echo "rename \"$SUBDIR\" ." >> ../filemap.txt

# create new repo using filemap
hg convert --filemap ../filemap.txt . ../new_repo_name

# cd to new repo and update to latest head revision, the update is required if you want to see your files
cd ../new_repo_name
hg update

Gist

Windows command line version, much the same but needs a temporary file:

rem cd to the full repo directory
cd path\to\full_repo

rem export tracked files in sub directory by creating a filemap using an intermediary temp file
set SUBDIR=name_of_subdir
hg locate -I "%SUBDIR%" > ..\filemap.tmp
for /f "tokens=*" %A in (..\filemap.tmp) do @echo include %A >> ..\filemap.txt
echo rename "%SUBDIR%" . >> ..\filemap.txt
del ..\filemap.tmp

rem create new repo using filemap
hg convert --filemap ..\filemap.txt . ..\new_repo_name

rem cd to new repo and update to latest head revision, the update is required if you want to see your files
cd ..\new_repo_name
hg update

Gist