Repository creation¶

clone¶

make a copy of an existing repository:

hg clone [OPTION]... SOURCE [DEST]

Create a copy of an existing repository in a new directory.

If no destination directory name is specified, it defaults to the basename of the source.

The location of the source is added to the new repository's .hg/hgrc file, as the default to be used for future pulls.

Only local paths and ssh:// URLs are supported as destinations. For ssh:// destinations, no working directory or .hg/hgrc will be created on the remote side.

If the source repository has a bookmark called '@' set, that revision will be checked out in the new repository by default.

To check out a particular version, use -u/--update, or -U/--noupdate to create a clone with no working directory.

To pull only a subset of changesets, specify one or more revisions identifiers with -r/--rev or branches with -b/--branch. The resulting clone will contain only the specified changesets and their ancestors. These options (or 'clone src#rev dest') imply --pull, even for local source repositories.

In normal clone mode, the remote normalizes repository data into a common exchange format and the receiving end translates this data into its local storage format. --stream activates a different clone mode that essentially copies repository files from the remote with minimal data processing. This significantly reduces the CPU cost of a clone both remotely and locally. However, it often increases the transferred data size by 30-40%. This can result in substantially faster clones where I/O throughput is plentiful, especially for larger repositories. A side-effect of --stream clones is that storage settings and requirements on the remote are applied locally: a modern client may inherit legacy or inefficient storage used by the remote or a legacy Mercurial client may not be able to clone from a modern Mercurial remote.

Note

Specifying a tag will include the tagged changeset but not the changeset containing the tag.

For efficiency, hardlinks are used for cloning whenever the source and destination are on the same filesystem (note this applies only to the repository data, not to the working directory). Some filesystems, such as AFS, implement hardlinking incorrectly, but do not report errors. In these cases, use the --pull option to avoid hardlinking.

Mercurial will update the working directory to the first applicable revision from this list:

When cloning from servers that support it, Mercurial may fetch pre-generated data from a server-advertised URL or inline from the same stream. When this is done, hooks operating on incoming changesets and changegroups may fire more than once, once for each pre-generated bundle and as well as for any additional remaining data. In addition, if an error occurs, the repository may be rolled back to a partial clone. This behavior may change in future releases. See hg help -e clonebundles for more.

Examples:

See hg help urls for details on specifying URLs.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

init¶

create a new repository in the given directory:

hg init [-e CMD] [--remotecmd CMD] [DEST]

Initialize a new repository in the given directory. If the given directory does not exist, it will be created.

If no directory is given, the current directory is used.

It is possible to specify an ssh:// URL as the destination. See hg help urls for more information.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

Remote repository management¶

incoming¶

show new changesets found in source:

hg incoming [-p] [-n] [-M] [-f] [-r REV]... [--bundle FILENAME] [SOURCE]

Show new changesets found in the specified path/URL or the default pull location. These are the changesets that would have been pulled by hg pull at the time you issued this command.

See pull for valid source format details.

With -B/--bookmarks, the result of bookmark comparison between local and remote repositories is displayed. With -v/--verbose, status is also displayed for each bookmark like below:

BM1               01234567890a added
BM2               1234567890ab advanced
BM3               234567890abc diverged
BM4               34567890abcd changed

The action taken locally when pulling depends on the status of each bookmark:

From the point of view of pulling behavior, bookmark existing only in the remote repository are treated as added, even if it is in fact locally deleted.

For remote repository, using --bundle avoids downloading the changesets twice if the incoming is followed by a pull.

Examples:

Returns 0 if there are incoming changes, 1 otherwise.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

outgoing¶

show changesets not found in the destination:

hg outgoing [-M] [-p] [-n] [-f] [-r REV]... [DEST]...

Show changesets not found in the specified destination repository or the default push location. These are the changesets that would be pushed if a push was requested.

See pull for details of valid destination formats.

With -B/--bookmarks, the result of bookmark comparison between local and remote repositories is displayed. With -v/--verbose, status is also displayed for each bookmark like below:

BM1               01234567890a added
BM2                            deleted
BM3               234567890abc advanced
BM4               34567890abcd diverged
BM5               4567890abcde changed

The action taken when pushing depends on the status of each bookmark:

From the point of view of pushing behavior, bookmarks existing only in the remote repository are treated as deleted, even if it is in fact added remotely.

Returns 0 if there are outgoing changes, 1 otherwise.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

paths¶

show aliases for remote repositories:

hg paths [NAME]

Show definition of symbolic path name NAME. If no name is given, show definition of all available names.

Option -q/--quiet suppresses all output when searching for NAME and shows only the path names when listing all definitions.

Path names are defined in the [paths] section of your configuration file and in /etc/mercurial/hgrc. If run inside a repository, .hg/hgrc is used, too.

The path names default and default-push have a special meaning. When performing a push or pull operation, they are used as fallbacks if no location is specified on the command-line. When default-push is set, it will be used for push and default will be used for pull; otherwise default is used as the fallback for both. When cloning a repository, the clone source is written as default in .hg/hgrc.

Note

default and default-push apply to all inbound (e.g. hg incoming) and outbound (e.g. hg outgoing, hg email and hg bundle) operations.

See hg help urls for more information.

Template:

The following keywords are supported. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

pull¶

pull changes from the specified source:

hg pull [-u] [-f] [-r REV]... [-e CMD] [--remotecmd CMD] [SOURCE]...

Pull changes from a remote repository to a local one.

This finds all changes from the repository at the specified path or URL and adds them to a local repository (the current one unless -R is specified). By default, this does not update the copy of the project in the working directory.

When cloning from servers that support it, Mercurial may fetch pre-generated data. When this is done, hooks operating on incoming changesets and changegroups may fire more than once, once for each pre-generated bundle and as well as for any additional remaining data. See hg help -e clonebundles for more.

Use hg incoming if you want to see what would have been added by a pull at the time you issued this command. If you then decide to add those changes to the repository, you should use hg pull -r X where X is the last changeset listed by hg incoming.

If SOURCE is omitted, the 'default' path will be used. See hg help urls for more information.

If multiple sources are specified, they will be pulled sequentially as if the command was run multiple time. If --update is specify and the command will stop at the first failed --update.

Specifying bookmark as . is equivalent to specifying the active bookmark's name.

One can use the --remote-hidden flag to pull changesets hidden on the remote. This flag is "best effort", and will only work if the server supports the feature and is configured to allow the user to access hidden changesets. This option is experimental and backwards compatibility is not garanteed.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if an update had unresolved files.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

push¶

push changes to the specified destination:

hg push [-f] [-r REV]... [-e CMD] [--remotecmd CMD] [DEST]...

Push changesets from the local repository to the specified destination.

This operation is symmetrical to pull: it is identical to a pull in the destination repository from the current one.

By default, push will not allow creation of new heads at the destination, since multiple heads would make it unclear which head to use. In this situation, it is recommended to pull and merge before pushing.

Use --new-branch if you want to allow push to create a new named branch that is not present at the destination. This allows you to only create a new branch without forcing other changes.

Note

Extra care should be taken with the -f/--force option, which will push all new heads on all branches, an action which will almost always cause confusion for collaborators.

If -r/--rev is used, the specified revision and all its ancestors will be pushed to the remote repository.

If -B/--bookmark is used, the specified bookmarked revision, its ancestors, and the bookmark will be pushed to the remote repository. Specifying . is equivalent to specifying the active bookmark's name. Use the --all-bookmarks option for pushing all current bookmarks.

Please see hg help urls for important details about ssh:// URLs. If DESTINATION is omitted, a default path will be used.

When passed multiple destinations, push will process them one after the other, but stop should an error occur.

The --pushvars option sends strings to the server that become environment variables prepended with HG_USERVAR_. For example, --pushvars ENABLE_FEATURE=true, provides the server side hooks with HG_USERVAR_ENABLE_FEATURE=true as part of their environment.

pushvars can provide for user-overridable hooks as well as set debug levels. One example is having a hook that blocks commits containing conflict markers, but enables the user to override the hook if the file is using conflict markers for testing purposes or the file format has strings that look like conflict markers.

By default, servers will ignore --pushvars. To enable it add the following to your configuration file:

[push]
pushvars.server = true

Returns 0 if push was successful, 1 if nothing to push.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

serve¶

start stand-alone webserver:

hg serve [OPTION]...

Start a local HTTP repository browser and pull server. You can use this for ad-hoc sharing and browsing of repositories. It is recommended to use a real web server to serve a repository for longer periods of time.

Please note that the server does not implement access control. This means that, by default, anybody can read from the server and nobody can write to it by default. Set the web.allow-push option to * to allow everybody to push to the server. You should use a real web server if you need to authenticate users.

By default, the server logs accesses to stdout and errors to stderr. Use the -A/--accesslog and -E/--errorlog options to log to files.

To have the server choose a free port number to listen on, specify a port number of 0; in this case, the server will print the port number it uses.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

Change creation¶

commit¶

commit the specified files or all outstanding changes:

hg commit [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Commit changes to the given files into the repository. Unlike a centralized SCM, this operation is a local operation. See hg push for a way to actively distribute your changes.

If a list of files is omitted, all changes reported by hg status will be committed.

If you are committing the result of a merge, do not provide any filenames or -I/-X filters.

If no commit message is specified, Mercurial starts your configured editor where you can enter a message. In case your commit fails, you will find a backup of your message in .hg/last-message.txt.

The --close-branch flag can be used to mark the current branch head closed. When all heads of a branch are closed, the branch will be considered closed and no longer listed.

The --amend flag can be used to amend the parent of the working directory with a new commit that contains the changes in the parent in addition to those currently reported by hg status, if there are any. The old commit is stored in a backup bundle in .hg/strip-backup (see hg help bundle and hg help unbundle on how to restore it).

Message, user and date are taken from the amended commit unless specified. When a message isn't specified on the command line, the editor will open with the message of the amended commit.

It is not possible to amend public changesets (see hg help phases) or changesets that have children.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if nothing changed.

Examples:

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

Change manipulation¶

abort¶

abort an unfinished operation (EXPERIMENTAL):

hg abort

Aborts a multistep operation like graft, histedit, rebase, merge, and unshelve if they are in an unfinished state.

use --dry-run/-n to dry run the command.

Options:

backout¶

reverse effect of earlier changeset:

hg backout [OPTION]... [-r] REV

Prepare a new changeset with the effect of REV undone in the current working directory. If no conflicts were encountered, it will be committed immediately.

If REV is the parent of the working directory, then this new changeset is committed automatically (unless --no-commit is specified).

Note

hg backout cannot be used to fix either an unwanted or incorrect merge.

Examples:

By default, the pending changeset will have one parent, maintaining a linear history. With --merge, the pending changeset will instead have two parents: the old parent of the working directory and a new child of REV that simply undoes REV.

Before version 1.7, the behavior without --merge was equivalent to specifying --merge followed by hg update --clean . to cancel the merge and leave the child of REV as a head to be merged separately.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

See hg help revert for a way to restore files to the state of another revision.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if nothing to backout or there are unresolved files.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

continue¶

resumes an interrupted operation (EXPERIMENTAL):

hg continue

Finishes a multistep operation like graft, histedit, rebase, merge, and unshelve if they are in an interrupted state.

use --dry-run/-n to dry run the command.

Options:

graft¶

copy changes from other branches onto the current branch:

hg graft [OPTION]... [-r REV]... REV...

This command uses Mercurial's merge logic to copy individual changes from other branches without merging branches in the history graph. This is sometimes known as 'backporting' or 'cherry-picking'. By default, graft will copy user, date, and description from the source changesets.

Changesets that are ancestors of the current revision, that have already been grafted, or that are merges will be skipped.

If --log is specified, log messages will have a comment appended of the form:

(grafted from CHANGESETHASH)

If --force is specified, revisions will be grafted even if they are already ancestors of, or have been grafted to, the destination. This is useful when the revisions have since been backed out.

If a graft merge results in conflicts, the graft process is interrupted so that the current merge can be manually resolved. Once all conflicts are addressed, the graft process can be continued with the -c/--continue option.

The -c/--continue option reapplies all the earlier options.

The --base option exposes more of how graft internally uses merge with a custom base revision. --base can be used to specify another ancestor than the first and only parent.

The command:

hg graft -r 345 --base 234

is thus pretty much the same as:

hg diff --from 234 --to 345 | hg import

but using merge to resolve conflicts and track moved files.

The result of a merge can thus be backported as a single commit by specifying one of the merge parents as base, and thus effectively grafting the changes from the other side.

It is also possible to collapse multiple changesets and clean up history by specifying another ancestor as base, much like rebase --collapse --keep.

The commit message can be tweaked after the fact using commit --amend .

For using non-ancestors as the base to backout changes, see the backout command and the hidden --parent option.

Examples:

See hg help revisions for more about specifying revisions.

Returns 0 on successful completion, 1 if there are unresolved files.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

merge¶

merge another revision into working directory:

hg merge [-P] [[-r] REV]

The current working directory is updated with all changes made in the requested revision since the last common predecessor revision.

Files that changed between either parent are marked as changed for the next commit and a commit must be performed before any further updates to the repository are allowed. The next commit will have two parents.

--tool can be used to specify the merge tool used for file merges. It overrides the HGMERGE environment variable and your configuration files. See hg help merge-tools for options.

If no revision is specified, the working directory's parent is a head revision, and the current branch contains exactly one other head, the other head is merged with by default. Otherwise, an explicit revision with which to merge must be provided.

See hg help resolve for information on handling file conflicts.

To undo an uncommitted merge, use hg merge --abort which will check out a clean copy of the original merge parent, losing all changes.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if there are unresolved files.

Options:

Change organization¶

bookmarks¶

create a new bookmark or list existing bookmarks:

hg bookmarks [OPTIONS]... [NAME]...

Bookmarks are labels on changesets to help track lines of development. Bookmarks are unversioned and can be moved, renamed and deleted. Deleting or moving a bookmark has no effect on the associated changesets.

Creating or updating to a bookmark causes it to be marked as 'active'. The active bookmark is indicated with a '*'. When a commit is made, the active bookmark will advance to the new commit. A plain hg update will also advance an active bookmark, if possible. Updating away from a bookmark will cause it to be deactivated.

Bookmarks can be pushed and pulled between repositories (see hg help push and hg help pull). If a shared bookmark has diverged, a new 'divergent bookmark' of the form 'name@path' will be created. Using hg merge will resolve the divergence.

Specifying bookmark as '.' to -m/-d/-l options is equivalent to specifying the active bookmark's name.

A bookmark named '@' has the special property that hg clone will check it out by default if it exists.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions such as {bookmark}. See also hg help templates.

Examples:

Options:

branch¶

set or show the current branch name:

hg branch [-fC] [NAME]

Note

Branch names are permanent and global. Use hg bookmark to create a light-weight bookmark instead. See hg help glossary for more information about named branches and bookmarks.

With no argument, show the current branch name. With one argument, set the working directory branch name (the branch will not exist in the repository until the next commit). Standard practice recommends that primary development take place on the 'default' branch.

Unless -f/--force is specified, branch will not let you set a branch name that already exists.

Use -C/--clean to reset the working directory branch to that of the parent of the working directory, negating a previous branch change.

Use the command hg update to switch to an existing branch. Use hg commit --close-branch to mark this branch head as closed. When all heads of a branch are closed, the branch will be considered closed.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

branches¶

list repository named branches:

hg branches [-c]

List the repository's named branches, indicating which ones are inactive. If -c/--closed is specified, also list branches which have been marked closed (see hg commit --close-branch).

Use the command hg update to switch to an existing branch.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions such as {branch}. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

phase¶

set or show the current phase name:

hg phase [-p|-d|-s] [-f] [-r] [REV...]

With no argument, show the phase name of the current revision(s).

With one of -p/--public, -d/--draft or -s/--secret, change the phase value of the specified revisions.

Unless -f/--force is specified, hg phase won't move changesets from a lower phase to a higher phase. Phases are ordered as follows:

public < draft < secret

Returns 0 on success, 1 if some phases could not be changed.

(For more information about the phases concept, see hg help phases.)

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

tag¶

add one or more tags for the current or given revision:

hg tag [-f] [-l] [-m TEXT] [-d DATE] [-u USER] [-r REV] NAME...

Name a particular revision using <name>.

Tags are used to name particular revisions of the repository and are very useful to compare different revisions, to go back to significant earlier versions or to mark branch points as releases, etc. Changing an existing tag is normally disallowed; use -f/--force to override.

If no revision is given, the parent of the working directory is used.

To facilitate version control, distribution, and merging of tags, they are stored as a file named ".hgtags" which is managed similarly to other project files and can be hand-edited if necessary. This also means that tagging creates a new commit. The file ".hg/localtags" is used for local tags (not shared among repositories).

Tag commits are usually made at the head of a branch. If the parent of the working directory is not a branch head, hg tag aborts; use -f/--force to force the tag commit to be based on a non-head changeset.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

Since tag names have priority over branch names during revision lookup, using an existing branch name as a tag name is discouraged.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

tags¶

list repository tags:

hg tags

This lists both regular and local tags. When the -v/--verbose switch is used, a third column "local" is printed for local tags. When the -q/--quiet switch is used, only the tag name is printed.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions such as {tag}. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

File content management¶

annotate¶

show changeset information by line for each file:

hg annotate [-r REV] [-f] [-a] [-u] [-d] [-n] [-c] [-l] FILE...

List changes in files, showing the revision id responsible for each line.

This command is useful for discovering when a change was made and by whom.

If you include --file, --user, or --date, the revision number is suppressed unless you also include --number.

Without the -a/--text option, annotate will avoid processing files it detects as binary. With -a, annotate will annotate the file anyway, although the results will probably be neither useful nor desirable.

Use -L/--line-range FILE,M:N options to filter the output to the lines from M to N in FILE. This option is incompatible with --no-follow and cannot be combined with file pattern arguments. When combined with --rev the line ranges refer to the state of the file at the requested revision.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

And each entry of {lines} provides the following sub-keywords in addition to {date}, {node}, {rev}, {user}, etc.

See hg help templates.operators for the list expansion syntax.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

cat¶

output the current or given revision of files:

hg cat [OPTION]... FILE...

Print the specified files as they were at the given revision. If no revision is given, the parent of the working directory is used.

Output may be to a file, in which case the name of the file is given using a template string. See hg help templates. In addition to the common template keywords, the following formatting rules are supported:

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

copy¶

mark files as copied for the next commit:

hg copy [OPTION]... (SOURCE... DEST | --forget DEST...)

Mark dest as having copies of source files. If dest is a directory, copies are put in that directory. If dest is a file, the source must be a single file.

By default, this command copies the contents of files as they exist in the working directory. If invoked with -A/--after, the operation is recorded, but no copying is performed.

To undo marking a destination file as copied, use --forget. With that option, all given (positional) arguments are unmarked as copies. The destination file(s) will be left in place (still tracked). Note that hg copy --forget behaves the same way as hg rename --forget.

This command takes effect with the next commit by default.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if errors are encountered.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

diff¶

diff repository (or selected files):

hg diff [OPTION]... ([-c REV] | [--from REV1] [--to REV2]) [FILE]...

Show differences between revisions for the specified files.

Differences between files are shown using the unified diff format.

Note

hg diff may generate unexpected results for merges, as it will default to comparing against the working directory's first parent changeset if no revisions are specified. To diff against the conflict regions, you can use --config diff.merge=yes.

By default, the working directory files are compared to its first parent. To see the differences from another revision, use --from. To see the difference to another revision, use --to. For example, hg diff --from .^ will show the differences from the working copy's grandparent to the working copy, hg diff --to . will show the diff from the working copy to its parent (i.e. the reverse of the default), and hg diff --from 1.0 --to 1.2 will show the diff between those two revisions.

Alternatively you can specify -c/--change with a revision to see the changes in that changeset relative to its first parent (i.e. hg diff -c 42 is equivalent to hg diff --from 42^ --to 42)

Without the -a/--text option, diff will avoid generating diffs of files it detects as binary. With -a, diff will generate a diff anyway, probably with undesirable results.

Use the -g/--git option to generate diffs in the git extended diff format. For more information, read hg help diffs.

Examples:

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

grep¶

search for a pattern in specified files:

hg grep [--diff] [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...

Search the working directory or revision history for a regular expression in the specified files for the entire repository.

By default, grep searches the repository files in the working directory and prints the files where it finds a match. To specify historical revisions instead of the working directory, use the --rev flag.

To search instead historical revision differences that contains a change in match status ("-" for a match that becomes a non-match, or "+" for a non-match that becomes a match), use the --diff flag.

PATTERN can be any Python (roughly Perl-compatible) regular expression.

If no FILEs are specified and the --rev flag isn't supplied, all files in the working directory are searched. When using the --rev flag and specifying FILEs, use the --follow argument to also follow the specified FILEs across renames and copies.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

And each entry of {texts} provides the following sub-keywords.

See hg help templates.operators for the list expansion syntax.

Returns 0 if a match is found, 1 otherwise.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

Change navigation¶

bisect¶

subdivision search of changesets:

hg bisect [-gbsr] [-U] [-c CMD] [REV]

This command helps to find changesets which introduce problems. To use, mark the earliest changeset you know exhibits the problem as bad, then mark the latest changeset which is free from the problem as good. Bisect will update your working directory to a revision for testing (unless the -U/--noupdate option is specified). Once you have performed tests, mark the working directory as good or bad, and bisect will either update to another candidate changeset or announce that it has found the bad revision.

As a shortcut, you can also use the revision argument to mark a revision as good or bad without checking it out first.

If you supply a command, it will be used for automatic bisection. The environment variable HG_NODE will contain the ID of the changeset being tested. The exit status of the command will be used to mark revisions as good or bad: status 0 means good, 125 means to skip the revision, 127 (command not found) will abort the bisection, and any other non-zero exit status means the revision is bad.

Some examples:

See hg help revisions.bisect for more about the bisect() predicate.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

heads¶

show branch heads:

hg heads [-ct] [-r STARTREV] [REV]...

With no arguments, show all open branch heads in the repository. Branch heads are changesets that have no descendants on the same branch. They are where development generally takes place and are the usual targets for update and merge operations.

If one or more REVs are given, only open branch heads on the branches associated with the specified changesets are shown. This means that you can use hg heads . to see the heads on the currently checked-out branch.

If -c/--closed is specified, also show branch heads marked closed (see hg commit --close-branch).

If STARTREV is specified, only those heads that are descendants of STARTREV will be displayed.

If -t/--topo is specified, named branch mechanics will be ignored and only topological heads (changesets with no children) will be shown.

Returns 0 if matching heads are found, 1 if not.

Options:

identify¶

identify the working directory or specified revision:

hg identify [-nibtB] [-r REV] [SOURCE]

Print a summary identifying the repository state at REV using one or two parent hash identifiers, followed by a "+" if the working directory has uncommitted changes, the branch name (if not default), a list of tags, and a list of bookmarks.

When REV is not given, print a summary of the current state of the repository including the working directory. Specify -r. to get information of the working directory parent without scanning uncommitted changes.

Specifying a path to a repository root or Mercurial bundle will cause lookup to operate on that repository/bundle.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Examples:

See hg log for generating more information about specific revisions, including full hash identifiers.

Returns 0 if successful.

Options:

log¶

show revision history of entire repository or files:

hg log [OPTION]... [FILE]

Print the revision history of the specified files or the entire project.

If no revision range is specified, the default is tip:0 unless --follow is set.

File history is shown without following rename or copy history of files. Use -f/--follow with a filename to follow history across renames and copies. --follow without a filename will only show ancestors of the starting revisions. The starting revisions can be specified by -r/--rev, which default to the working directory parent.

By default this command prints revision number and changeset id, tags, non-trivial parents, user, date and time, and a summary for each commit. When the -v/--verbose switch is used, the list of changed files and full commit message are shown.

With --graph the revisions are shown as an ASCII art DAG with the most recent changeset at the top. 'o' is a changeset, '@' is a working directory parent, '%' is a changeset involved in an unresolved merge conflict, '_' closes a branch, 'x' is obsolete, '*' is unstable, and '+' represents a fork where the changeset from the lines below is a parent of the 'o' merge on the same line. Paths in the DAG are represented with '|', '/' and so forth. ':' in place of a '|' indicates one or more revisions in a path are omitted.

Use -L/--line-range FILE,M:N options to follow the history of lines from M to N in FILE. With -p/--patch only diff hunks affecting specified line range will be shown. This option requires --follow; it can be specified multiple times. Currently, this option is not compatible with --graph. This option is experimental.

Note

hg log --patch may generate unexpected diff output for merge changesets, as it will only compare the merge changeset against its first parent. Also, only files different from BOTH parents will appear in files:.

Note

For performance reasons, hg log FILE may omit duplicate changes made on branches and will not show removals or mode changes. To see all such changes, use the --removed switch.

Note

The history resulting from -L/--line-range options depends on diff options; for instance if white-spaces are ignored, respective changes with only white-spaces in specified line range will not be listed.

Some examples:

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

See hg help revisions for more about specifying and ordering revisions.

See hg help templates for more about pre-packaged styles and specifying custom templates. The default template used by the log command can be customized via the command-templates.log configuration setting.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

parents¶

show the parents of the working directory or revision (DEPRECATED):

hg parents [-r REV] [FILE]

Print the working directory's parent revisions. If a revision is given via -r/--rev, the parent of that revision will be printed. If a file argument is given, the revision in which the file was last changed (before the working directory revision or the argument to --rev if given) is printed.

This command is equivalent to:

hg log -r "p1()+p2()" or
hg log -r "p1(REV)+p2(REV)" or
hg log -r "max(::p1() and file(FILE))+max(::p2() and file(FILE))" or
hg log -r "max(::p1(REV) and file(FILE))+max(::p2(REV) and file(FILE))"

See hg summary and hg help revsets for related information.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

tip¶

show the tip revision (DEPRECATED):

hg tip [-p] [-g]

The tip revision (usually just called the tip) is the changeset most recently added to the repository (and therefore the most recently changed head).

If you have just made a commit, that commit will be the tip. If you have just pulled changes from another repository, the tip of that repository becomes the current tip. The "tip" tag is special and cannot be renamed or assigned to a different changeset.

This command is deprecated, please use hg heads instead.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

Working directory management¶

add¶

add the specified files on the next commit:

hg add [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Schedule files to be version controlled and added to the repository.

The files will be added to the repository at the next commit. To undo an add before that, see hg forget.

If no names are given, add all files to the repository (except files matching .hgignore).

Examples:

Returns 0 if all files are successfully added.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

addremove¶

add all new files, delete all missing files:

hg addremove [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Add all new files and remove all missing files from the repository.

Unless names are given, new files are ignored if they match any of the patterns in .hgignore. As with add, these changes take effect at the next commit.

Use the -s/--similarity option to detect renamed files. This option takes a percentage between 0 (disabled) and 100 (files must be identical) as its parameter. With a parameter greater than 0, this compares every removed file with every added file and records those similar enough as renames. Detecting renamed files this way can be expensive. After using this option, hg status -C can be used to check which files were identified as moved or renamed. If not specified, -s/--similarity defaults to 100 and only renames of identical files are detected.

Examples:

Returns 0 if all files are successfully added.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

files¶

list tracked files:

hg files [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Print files under Mercurial control in the working directory or specified revision for given files (excluding removed files). Files can be specified as filenames or filesets.

If no files are given to match, this command prints the names of all files under Mercurial control.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Examples:

See hg help patterns and hg help filesets for more information on specifying file patterns.

Returns 0 if a match is found, 1 otherwise.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

forget¶

forget the specified files on the next commit:

hg forget [OPTION]... FILE...

Mark the specified files so they will no longer be tracked after the next commit.

This only removes files from the current branch, not from the entire project history, and it does not delete them from the working directory.

To delete the file from the working directory, see hg remove.

To undo a forget before the next commit, see hg add.

Examples:

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

locate¶

locate files matching specific patterns (DEPRECATED):

hg locate [OPTION]... [PATTERN]...

Print files under Mercurial control in the working directory whose names match the given patterns.

By default, this command searches all directories in the working directory. To search just the current directory and its subdirectories, use "--include .".

If no patterns are given to match, this command prints the names of all files under Mercurial control in the working directory.

If you want to feed the output of this command into the "xargs" command, use the -0 option to both this command and "xargs". This will avoid the problem of "xargs" treating single filenames that contain whitespace as multiple filenames.

See hg help files for a more versatile command.

Returns 0 if a match is found, 1 otherwise.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

purge¶

removes files not tracked by Mercurial:

hg purge [OPTION]... [DIR]...

Delete files not known to Mercurial. This is useful to test local and uncommitted changes in an otherwise-clean source tree.

This means that purge will delete the following by default:

But it will leave untouched:

The --files and --dirs options can be used to direct purge to delete only files, only directories, or both. If neither option is given, both will be deleted.

If directories are given on the command line, only files in these directories are considered.

Be careful with purge, as you could irreversibly delete some files you forgot to add to the repository. If you only want to print the list of files that this program would delete, use the --print option.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

remove¶

remove the specified files on the next commit:

hg remove [OPTION]... FILE...

Schedule the indicated files for removal from the current branch.

This command schedules the files to be removed at the next commit. To undo a remove before that, see hg revert. To undo added files, see hg forget.

-A/--after can be used to remove only files that have already been deleted, -f/--force can be used to force deletion, and -Af can be used to remove files from the next revision without deleting them from the working directory.

The following table details the behavior of remove for different file states (columns) and option combinations (rows). The file states are Added [A], Clean [C], Modified [M] and Missing [!] (as reported by hg status). The actions are Warn, Remove (from branch) and Delete (from disk):

Note

hg remove never deletes files in Added [A] state from the working directory, not even if --force is specified.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if any warnings encountered.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

rename¶

rename files; equivalent of copy + remove:

hg rename [OPTION]... SOURCE... DEST

Mark dest as copies of sources; mark sources for deletion. If dest is a directory, copies are put in that directory. If dest is a file, there can only be one source.

By default, this command copies the contents of files as they exist in the working directory. If invoked with -A/--after, the operation is recorded, but no copying is performed.

To undo marking a destination file as renamed, use --forget. With that option, all given (positional) arguments are unmarked as renames. The destination file(s) will be left in place (still tracked). The source file(s) will not be restored. Note that hg rename --forget behaves the same way as hg copy --forget.

This command takes effect with the next commit by default.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if errors are encountered.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

resolve¶

redo merges or set/view the merge status of files:

hg resolve [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Merges with unresolved conflicts are often the result of non-interactive merging using the internal:merge configuration setting, or a command-line merge tool like diff3. The resolve command is used to manage the files involved in a merge, after hg merge has been run, and before hg commit is run (i.e. the working directory must have two parents). See hg help merge-tools for information on configuring merge tools.

The resolve command can be used in the following ways:

Note

Mercurial will not let you commit files with unresolved merge conflicts. You must use hg resolve -m ... before you can commit after a conflicting merge.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if any files fail a resolve attempt.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

revert¶

restore files to their checkout state:

hg revert [OPTION]... [-r REV] [NAME]...

Note

To check out earlier revisions, you should use hg update REV. To cancel an uncommitted merge (and lose your changes), use hg merge --abort.

With no revision specified, revert the specified files or directories to the contents they had in the parent of the working directory. This restores the contents of files to an unmodified state and unschedules adds, removes, copies, and renames. If the working directory has two parents, you must explicitly specify a revision.

Using the -r/--rev or -d/--date options, revert the given files or directories to their states as of a specific revision. Because revert does not change the working directory parents, this will cause these files to appear modified. This can be helpful to "back out" some or all of an earlier change. See hg backout for a related method.

Modified files are saved with a .orig suffix before reverting. To disable these backups, use --no-backup. It is possible to store the backup files in a custom directory relative to the root of the repository by setting the ui.origbackuppath configuration option.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

See hg help backout for a way to reverse the effect of an earlier changeset.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

root¶

print the root (top) of the current working directory:

hg root

Print the root directory of the current repository.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

shelve¶

save and set aside changes from the working directory:

hg shelve [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Shelving takes files that "hg status" reports as not clean, saves the modifications to a bundle (a shelved change), and reverts the files so that their state in the working directory becomes clean.

To restore these changes to the working directory, using "hg unshelve"; this will work even if you switch to a different commit.

When no files are specified, "hg shelve" saves all not-clean files. If specific files or directories are named, only changes to those files are shelved.

In bare shelve (when no files are specified, without interactive, include and exclude option), shelving remembers information if the working directory was on newly created branch, in other words working directory was on different branch than its first parent. In this situation unshelving restores branch information to the working directory.

Each shelved change has a name that makes it easier to find later. The name of a shelved change defaults to being based on the active bookmark, or if there is no active bookmark, the current named branch. To specify a different name, use --name.

To see a list of existing shelved changes, use the --list option. For each shelved change, this will print its name, age, and description; use --patch or --stat for more details.

To delete specific shelved changes, use --delete. To delete all shelved changes, use --cleanup.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

status¶

show changed files in the working directory:

hg status [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Show status of files in the repository. If names are given, only files that match are shown. Files that are clean or ignored or the source of a copy/move operation, are not listed unless -c/--clean, -i/--ignored, -C/--copies or -A/--all are given. Unless options described with "show only ..." are given, the options -mardu are used.

Option -q/--quiet hides untracked (unknown and ignored) files unless explicitly requested with -u/--unknown or -i/--ignored.

Note

hg status may appear to disagree with diff if permissions have changed or a merge has occurred. The standard diff format does not report permission changes and diff only reports changes relative to one merge parent.

If one revision is given, it is used as the base revision. If two revisions are given, the differences between them are shown. The --change option can also be used as a shortcut to list the changed files of a revision from its first parent.

The codes used to show the status of files are:

M = modified
A = added
R = removed
C = clean
! = missing (deleted by non-hg command, but still tracked)
? = not tracked
I = ignored


  = origin of the previous file (with --copies)

The -t/--terse option abbreviates the output by showing only the directory name if all the files in it share the same status. The option takes an argument indicating the statuses to abbreviate: 'm' for 'modified', 'a' for 'added', 'r' for 'removed', 'd' for 'deleted', 'u' for 'unknown', 'i' for 'ignored' and 'c' for clean.

It abbreviates only those statuses which are passed. Note that clean and ignored files are not displayed with '--terse ic' unless the -c/--clean and -i/--ignored options are also used.

The -v/--verbose option shows information when the repository is in an unfinished merge, shelve, rebase state etc. You can have this behavior turned on by default by enabling the commands.status.verbose option.

You can skip displaying some of these states by setting commands.status.skipstates to one or more of: 'bisect', 'graft', 'histedit', 'merge', 'rebase', or 'unshelve'.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Examples:

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

summary¶

summarize working directory state:

hg summary [--remote]

This generates a brief summary of the working directory state, including parents, branch, commit status, phase and available updates.

With the --remote option, this will check the default paths for incoming and outgoing changes. This can be time-consuming.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

unshelve¶

restore a shelved change to the working directory:

hg unshelve [OPTION]... [[-n] SHELVED]

This command accepts an optional name of a shelved change to restore. If none is given, the most recent shelved change is used.

If a shelved change is applied successfully, the bundle that contains the shelved changes is moved to a backup location (.hg/shelve-backup).

Since you can restore a shelved change on top of an arbitrary commit, it is possible that unshelving will result in a conflict between your changes and the commits you are unshelving onto. If this occurs, you must resolve the conflict, then use --continue to complete the unshelve operation. (The bundle will not be moved until you successfully complete the unshelve.)

(Alternatively, you can use --abort to abandon an unshelve that causes a conflict. This reverts the unshelved changes, and leaves the bundle in place.)

If bare shelved change (without interactive, include and exclude option) was done on newly created branch it would restore branch information to the working directory.

After a successful unshelve, the shelved changes are stored in a backup directory. Only the N most recent backups are kept. N defaults to 10 but can be overridden using the shelve.maxbackups configuration option.

Timestamp in seconds is used to decide order of backups. More than maxbackups backups are kept, if same timestamp prevents from deciding exact order of them, for safety.

Selected changes can be unshelved with --interactive flag. The working directory is updated with the selected changes, and only the unselected changes remain shelved. Note: The whole shelve is applied to working directory first before running interactively. So, this will bring up all the conflicts between working directory and the shelve, irrespective of which changes will be unshelved.

Options:

update¶

update working directory (or switch revisions):

hg update [-C|-c|-m] [-d DATE] [[-r] REV]

Update the repository's working directory to the specified changeset. If no changeset is specified, update to the tip of the current named branch and move the active bookmark (see hg help bookmarks).

Update sets the working directory's parent revision to the specified changeset (see hg help parents).

If the changeset is not a descendant or ancestor of the working directory's parent and there are uncommitted changes, the update is aborted. With the -c/--check option, the working directory is checked for uncommitted changes; if none are found, the working directory is updated to the specified changeset.

The -C/--clean, -c/--check, and -m/--merge options control what happens if the working directory contains uncommitted changes. At most of one of them can be specified.

To cancel an uncommitted merge (and lose your changes), use hg merge --abort.

Use null as the changeset to remove the working directory (like hg clone -U).

If you want to revert just one file to an older revision, use hg revert [-r REV] NAME.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if there are unresolved files.

Options:

Change import/export¶

archive¶

create an unversioned archive of a repository revision:

hg archive [OPTION]... DEST

By default, the revision used is the parent of the working directory; use -r/--rev to specify a different revision.

The archive type is automatically detected based on file extension (to override, use -t/--type).

Examples:

Valid types are:

The exact name of the destination archive or directory is given using a format string; see hg help export for details.

Each member added to an archive file has a directory prefix prepended. Use -p/--prefix to specify a format string for the prefix. The default is the basename of the archive, with suffixes removed.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

bundle¶

create a bundle file:

hg bundle [-f] [-t BUNDLESPEC] [-a] [-r REV]... [--base REV]... FILE [DEST]...

Generate a bundle file containing data to be transferred to another repository.

To create a bundle containing all changesets, use -a/--all (or --base null). Otherwise, hg assumes the destination will have all the nodes you specify with --base parameters. Otherwise, hg will assume the repository has all the nodes in destination, or default-push/default if no destination is specified, where destination is the repositories you provide through DEST option.

You can change bundle format with the -t/--type option. See hg help bundlespec for documentation on this format. By default, the most appropriate format is used and compression defaults to bzip2.

The bundle file can then be transferred using conventional means and applied to another repository with the unbundle or pull command. This is useful when direct push and pull are not available or when exporting an entire repository is undesirable.

Applying bundles preserves all changeset contents including permissions, copy/rename information, and revision history.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if no changes found.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

export¶

dump the header and diffs for one or more changesets:

hg export [OPTION]... [-o OUTFILESPEC] [-r] [REV]...

Print the changeset header and diffs for one or more revisions. If no revision is given, the parent of the working directory is used.

The information shown in the changeset header is: author, date, branch name (if non-default), changeset hash, parent(s) and commit comment.

Note

hg export may generate unexpected diff output for merge changesets, as it will compare the merge changeset against its first parent only.

Output may be to a file, in which case the name of the file is given using a template string. See hg help templates. In addition to the common template keywords, the following formatting rules are supported:

Without the -a/--text option, export will avoid generating diffs of files it detects as binary. With -a, export will generate a diff anyway, probably with undesirable results.

With -B/--bookmark changesets reachable by the given bookmark are selected.

Use the -g/--git option to generate diffs in the git extended diff format. See hg help diffs for more information.

With the --switch-parent option, the diff will be against the second parent. It can be useful to review a merge.

Template:

The following keywords are supported in addition to the common template keywords and functions. See also hg help templates.

Examples:

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

import¶

import an ordered set of patches:

hg import [OPTION]... PATCH...

Import a list of patches and commit them individually (unless --no-commit is specified).

To read a patch from standard input (stdin), use "-" as the patch name. If a URL is specified, the patch will be downloaded from there.

Import first applies changes to the working directory (unless --bypass is specified), import will abort if there are outstanding changes.

Use --bypass to apply and commit patches directly to the repository, without affecting the working directory. Without --exact, patches will be applied on top of the working directory parent revision.

You can import a patch straight from a mail message. Even patches as attachments work (to use the body part, it must have type text/plain or text/x-patch). From and Subject headers of email message are used as default committer and commit message. All text/plain body parts before first diff are added to the commit message.

If the imported patch was generated by hg export, user and description from patch override values from message headers and body. Values given on command line with -m/--message and -u/--user override these.

If --exact is specified, import will set the working directory to the parent of each patch before applying it, and will abort if the resulting changeset has a different ID than the one recorded in the patch. This will guard against various ways that portable patch formats and mail systems might fail to transfer Mercurial data or metadata. See hg bundle for lossless transmission.

Use --partial to ensure a changeset will be created from the patch even if some hunks fail to apply. Hunks that fail to apply will be written to a <target-file>.rej file. Conflicts can then be resolved by hand before hg commit --amend is run to update the created changeset. This flag exists to let people import patches that partially apply without losing the associated metadata (author, date, description, ...).

Note

When no hunks apply cleanly, hg import --partial will create an empty changeset, importing only the patch metadata.

With -s/--similarity, hg will attempt to discover renames and copies in the patch in the same way as hg addremove.

It is possible to use external patch programs to perform the patch by setting the ui.patch configuration option. For the default internal tool, the fuzz can also be configured via patch.fuzz. See hg help config for more information about configuration files and how to use these options.

See hg help dates for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

Examples:

Returns 0 on success, 1 on partial success (see --partial).

Options:

unbundle¶

apply one or more bundle files:

hg unbundle [-u] FILE...

Apply one or more bundle files generated by hg bundle.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if an update has unresolved files.

Options:

Repository maintenance¶

admin::verify¶

verify the integrity of the repository:

hg admin::verify

Alternative UI to hg verify with a lot more control over the verification process and better error reporting.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

manifest¶

output the current or given revision of the project manifest:

hg manifest [-r REV]

Print a list of version controlled files for the given revision. If no revision is given, the first parent of the working directory is used, or the null revision if no revision is checked out.

With -v, print file permissions, symlink and executable bits. With --debug, print file revision hashes.

If option --all is specified, the list of all files from all revisions is printed. This includes deleted and renamed files.

Returns 0 on success.

Options:

recover¶

roll back an interrupted transaction:

hg recover

Recover from an interrupted commit or pull.

This command tries to fix the repository status after an interrupted operation. It should only be necessary when Mercurial suggests it.

Returns 0 if successful, 1 if nothing to recover or verify fails.

Options:

rollback¶

roll back the last transaction (DANGEROUS) (DEPRECATED):

hg rollback

Please use hg commit --amend instead of rollback to correct mistakes in the last commit.

This command should be used with care. There is only one level of rollback, and there is no way to undo a rollback. It will also restore the dirstate at the time of the last transaction, losing any dirstate changes since that time. This command does not alter the working directory.

Transactions are used to encapsulate the effects of all commands that create new changesets or propagate existing changesets into a repository.

For example, the following commands are transactional, and their effects can be rolled back:

To avoid permanent data loss, rollback will refuse to rollback a commit transaction if it isn't checked out. Use --force to override this protection.

The rollback command can be entirely disabled by setting the ui.rollback configuration setting to false. If you're here because you want to use rollback and it's disabled, you can re-enable the command by setting ui.rollback to true.

This command is not intended for use on public repositories. Once changes are visible for pull by other users, rolling a transaction back locally is ineffective (someone else may already have pulled the changes). Furthermore, a race is possible with readers of the repository; for example an in-progress pull from the repository may fail if a rollback is performed.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if no rollback data is available.

Options:

verify¶

verify the integrity of the repository:

hg verify

Verify the integrity of the current repository.

This will perform an extensive check of the repository's integrity, validating the hashes and checksums of each entry in the changelog, manifest, and tracked files, as well as the integrity of their crosslinks and indices.

Please see https://mercurial-scm.org/wiki/RepositoryCorruption for more information about recovery from corruption of the repository.

For an alternative UI with a lot more control over the verification process and better error reporting, try hg help admin::verify.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if errors are encountered.

Options:

Help¶

config¶

show combined config settings from all hgrc files:

hg config [-u] [NAME]...

With no arguments, print names and values of all config items.

With one argument of the form section.name, print just the value of that config item.

With multiple arguments, print names and values of all config items with matching section names or section.names.

With --edit, start an editor on the user-level config file. With --global, edit the system-wide config file. With --local, edit the repository-level config file.

With --source, the source (filename and line number) is printed for each config item.

See hg help config for more information about config files.

--non-shared flag is used to edit .hg/hgrc-not-shared config file. This file is not shared across shares when in share-safe mode.

Template:

The following keywords are supported. See also hg help templates.

The --shared flag can be used to edit the config file of shared source repository. It only works when you have shared using the experimental share safe feature.

Returns 0 on success, 1 if NAME does not exist.

Options:

help¶

show help for a given topic or a help overview:

hg help [-eck] [-s PLATFORM] [TOPIC]

With no arguments, print a list of commands with short help messages.

Given a topic, extension, or command name, print help for that topic.

Returns 0 if successful.

Options:

[+] marked option can be specified multiple times

version¶

output version and copyright information:

hg version

Template:

The following keywords are supported. See also hg help templates.

And each entry of {extensions} provides the following sub-keywords in addition to {ver}.

Options:

Uncategorized commands¶

admin::chainsaw-update¶

pull and update to a given revision, no matter what, (EXPERIMENTAL):

hg admin::chainsaw-update [OPTION] --rev REV --source SOURCE --dest DEST

Context of application: some Continuous Integration (CI) systems, packaging or deployment tools.

Wanted end result: local repository at the given REPO_PATH, having the latest changes to the given revision and with a clean working directory updated at the given revision.

chainsaw-update pulls from one source, then updates the working directory to the given revision, overcoming anything that would stand in the way.

By default, it will:

DO NOT use it for anything else than performing a series of unattended updates, with full exclusive repository access each time and without any other local work than running build scripts. In case the local repository is a share (see hg help share), exclusive write access to the share source is also mandatory.

It is recommended to run these commands with the HGPLAIN environment variable (see hg scripting).

Motivation: in Continuous Integration and Delivery systems (CI/CD), the occasional remnant or bogus lock are common sources of waste of time (both working time and calendar time). CI/CD scripts tend to grow with counter- measures, often done in urgency. Also, whilst it is neat to keep repositories from one job to the next (especially with large repositories), an exceptional recloning is better than missing a release deadline.

Options:

Available Types¶

The following bundle <type> strings are available:

Available Compression Engines¶

The following bundle <compression> engines can be used:

The compression engines can be prepended with stream to create a streaming bundle. These are bundles that are extremely efficient to produce and consume, but do not have guaranteed compatibility with older clients.

Available Options¶

The following options exist:

Examples¶

Mode¶

Mercurial can use various systems to display color. The supported modes are ansi, win32, and terminfo. See hg help config.color for details about how to control the mode.

Effects¶

Other effects in addition to color, like bold and underlined text, are also available. By default, the terminfo database is used to find the terminal codes used to change color and effect. If terminfo is not available, then effects are rendered with the ECMA-48 SGR control function (aka ANSI escape codes).

The available effects in terminfo mode are 'blink', 'bold', 'dim', 'inverse', 'invisible', 'italic', 'standout', and 'underline'; in ECMA-48 mode, the options are 'bold', 'inverse', 'italic', and 'underline'. How each is rendered depends on the terminal emulator. Some may not be available for a given terminal type, and will be silently ignored.

If the terminfo entry for your terminal is missing codes for an effect or has the wrong codes, you can add or override those codes in your configuration:

[color]
terminfo.dim = \E[2m

where 'E' is substituted with an escape character.

Labels¶

Text receives color effects depending on the labels that it has. Many default Mercurial commands emit labelled text. You can also define your own labels in templates using the label function, see hg help templates. In order to receive effects, labels must have a dot, such as log.secret or branch.active. A single portion of text may have more than one label. In that case, effects given to the last label will override any other effects. This includes the special "none" effect, which nullifies other effects.

Labels are normally invisible. In order to see these labels and their position in the text, use the global --color=debug option. The same anchor text may be associated to multiple labels, e.g.

The following are the default effects for some default labels. Default effects may be overridden from your configuration file:

[color]
status.modified = blue bold underline red_background
status.added = green bold
status.removed = red bold blue_background
status.deleted = cyan bold underline
status.unknown = magenta bold underline
status.ignored = black bold
# 'none' turns off all effects
status.clean = none
status.copied = none
qseries.applied = blue bold underline
qseries.unapplied = black bold
qseries.missing = red bold
diff.diffline = bold
diff.extended = cyan bold
diff.file_a = red bold
diff.file_b = green bold
diff.hunk = magenta
diff.deleted = red
diff.inserted = green
diff.changed = white
diff.tab =
diff.trailingwhitespace = bold red_background
# Blank so it inherits the style of the surrounding label
changeset.public =
changeset.draft =
changeset.secret =
resolve.unresolved = red bold
resolve.resolved = green bold
bookmarks.active = green
branches.active = none
branches.closed = black bold
branches.current = green
branches.inactive = none
tags.normal = green
tags.local = black bold
rebase.rebased = blue
rebase.remaining = red bold
shelve.age = cyan
shelve.newest = green bold
shelve.name = blue bold
histedit.remaining = red bold

Custom colors¶

Because there are only eight standard colors, Mercurial allows you to define color names for other color slots which might be available for your terminal type, assuming terminfo mode. For instance:

color.brightblue = 12
color.pink = 207
color.orange = 202

to set 'brightblue' to color slot 12 (useful for 16 color terminals that have brighter colors defined in the upper eight) and, 'pink' and 'orange' to colors in 256-color xterm's default color cube. These defined colors may then be used as any of the pre-defined eight, including appending '_background' to set the background to that color.

Commands¶

The following commands are still available but their use are not recommended:

locate

This command has been replaced by hg files.

parents

This command can be replaced by hg summary or hg log with appropriate revsets. See hg help revsets for more information.

tip

The recommended alternative is hg heads.

Options¶

Current feature status¶

This feature is still in development.

Instability¶

Rewriting changesets might introduce instability.

There are two main kinds of instability: orphaning and diverging.

Orphans are changesets left behind when their ancestors are rewritten. Divergence has two variants:

It is possible to prevent local creation of orphans by using the following config:

[experimental]
evolution.createmarkers = true
evolution.exchange = true

You can also enable that option explicitly:

[experimental]
evolution.createmarkers = true
evolution.exchange = true
evolution.allowunstable = true

Operators¶

There is a single prefix operator:

These are the supported infix operators:

Predicates¶

The following predicates are supported:

Examples¶

Some sample queries:

Flag names¶

Flags for each command are listed in hg help for that command. Additionally, some flags, such as --repository, are global and can be used with any command - those are seen in hg help -v, and can be specified before or after the command.

Every flag has at least a long name, such as --repository. Some flags may also have a short one-letter name, such as the equivalent -R. Using the short or long name is equivalent and has the same effect. The long name may be abbreviated to any unambiguous prefix. For example, hg commit --amend can be abbreviated to hg commit --am.

Flags that have a short name can also be bundled together - for instance, to specify both --edit (short -e) and --interactive (short -i), one could use:

hg commit -ei

If any of the bundled flags takes a value (i.e. is not a boolean), it must be last, followed by the value:

hg commit -im 'Message'

Flag types¶

Mercurial command-line flags can be strings, numbers, booleans, or lists of strings.

Specifying flag values¶

The following syntaxes are allowed, assuming a flag 'flagname' with short name 'f':

--flagname=foo
--flagname foo
-f foo
-ffoo

This syntax applies to all non-boolean flags (strings, numbers or lists).

Specifying boolean flags¶

Boolean flags do not take a value parameter. To specify a boolean, use the flag name to set it to true, or the same name prefixed with 'no-' to set it to false:

hg commit --interactive
hg commit --no-interactive

Specifying list flags¶

List flags take multiple values. To specify them, pass the flag multiple times:

hg files --include mercurial --include tests

Setting flag defaults¶

In order to set a default value for a flag in an hgrc file, it is recommended to use aliases:

[alias]
commit = commit --interactive

For more information on hgrc files, see hg help config.

Overriding flags on the command line¶

If the same non-list flag is specified multiple times on the command line, the latest specification is used:

hg commit -m "Ignored value" -m "Used value"

This includes the use of aliases - e.g., if one has:

[alias]
committemp = commit -m "Ignored value"

then the following command will override that -m:

hg committemp -m "Used value"

Overriding flag defaults¶

Every flag has a default value, and you may also set your own defaults in hgrc as described above. Except for list flags, defaults can be overridden on the command line simply by specifying the flag in that location.

Hidden flags¶

Some flags are not shown in a command's help by default - specifically, those that are deemed to be experimental, deprecated or advanced. To show all flags, add the --verbose flag for the help command:

hg help --verbose commit

Synopsis¶

The Mercurial system uses a file called .hgignore in the root directory of a repository to control its behavior when it searches for files that it is not currently tracking.

Description¶

The working directory of a Mercurial repository will often contain files that should not be tracked by Mercurial. These include backup files created by editors and build products created by compilers. These files can be ignored by listing them in a .hgignore file in the root of the working directory. The .hgignore file must be created manually. It is typically put under version control, so that the settings will propagate to other repositories with push and pull.

An untracked file is ignored if its path relative to the repository root directory, or any prefix path of that path, is matched against any pattern in .hgignore.

For example, say we have an untracked file, file.c, at a/b/file.c inside our repository. Mercurial will ignore file.c if any pattern in .hgignore matches a/b/file.c, a/b or a.

In addition, a Mercurial configuration file can reference a set of per-user or global ignore files. See the ignore configuration key on the [ui] section of hg help config for details of how to configure these files.

To control Mercurial's handling of files that it manages, many commands support the -I and -X options; see hg help <command> and hg help patterns for details.

Files that are already tracked are not affected by .hgignore, even if they appear in .hgignore. An untracked file X can be explicitly added with hg add X, even if X would be excluded by a pattern in .hgignore.

Syntax¶

An ignore file is a plain text file consisting of a list of patterns, with one pattern per line. Empty lines are skipped. The # character is treated as a comment character, and the \ character is treated as an escape character.

Mercurial supports several pattern syntaxes. The default syntax used is Python/Perl-style regular expressions.

To change the syntax used, use a line of the following form:

syntax: NAME

where NAME is one of the following:

The chosen syntax stays in effect when parsing all patterns that follow, until another syntax is selected.

Neither glob nor regexp patterns are rooted. A glob-syntax pattern of the form *.c will match a file ending in .c in any directory, and a regexp pattern of the form \.c$ will do the same. To root a regexp pattern, start it with ^. To get the same effect with glob-syntax, you have to use rootglob.

Subdirectories can have their own .hgignore settings by adding subinclude:path/to/subdir/.hgignore to the root .hgignore. See hg help patterns for details on subinclude: and include:.

Note

Patterns specified in other than .hgignore are always rooted. Please see hg help patterns for details.

Example¶

Here is an example ignore file.

# use glob syntax.
syntax: glob
*.elc
*.pyc
*~
# switch to regexp syntax.
syntax: regexp
^\.pc/

Debugging¶

Use the debugignore command to see if and why a file is ignored, or to see the combined ignore pattern. See hg help debugignore for details.

URLs and Common Arguments¶

URLs under each repository have the form /{command}[/{arguments}] where {command} represents the name of a command or handler and {arguments} represents any number of additional URL parameters to that command.

The web server has a default style associated with it. Styles map to a collection of named templates. Each template is used to render a specific piece of data, such as a changeset or diff.

The style for the current request can be overridden two ways. First, if {command} contains a hyphen (-), the text before the hyphen defines the style. For example, /atom-log will render the log command handler with the atom style. The second way to set the style is with the style query string argument. For example, /log?style=atom. The hyphenated URL parameter is preferred.

Not all templates are available for all styles. Attempting to use a style that doesn't have all templates defined may result in an error rendering the page.

Many commands take a {revision} URL parameter. This defines the changeset to operate on. This is commonly specified as the short, 12 digit hexadecimal abbreviation for the full 40 character unique revision identifier. However, any value described by hg help revisions typically works.

Commands and URLs¶

The following web commands and their URLs are available:

/annotate/{revision}/{path}¶

Show changeset information for each line in a file.

The ignorews, ignorewsamount, ignorewseol, and ignoreblanklines query string arguments have the same meaning as their [annotate] config equivalents. It uses the hgrc boolean parsing logic to interpret the value. e.g. 0 and false are false and 1 and true are true. If not defined, the server default settings are used.

The fileannotate template is rendered.

/archive/{revision}.{format}[/{path}]¶

Obtain an archive of repository content.

The content and type of the archive is defined by a URL path parameter. format is the file extension of the archive type to be generated. e.g. zip or tar.bz2. Not all archive types may be allowed by your server configuration.

The optional path URL parameter controls content to include in the archive. If omitted, every file in the specified revision is present in the archive. If included, only the specified file or contents of the specified directory will be included in the archive.

No template is used for this handler. Raw, binary content is generated.

/bookmarks¶

Show information about bookmarks.

No arguments are accepted.

The bookmarks template is rendered.

/branches¶

Show information about branches.

All known branches are contained in the output, even closed branches.

No arguments are accepted.

The branches template is rendered.

/changelog[/{revision}]¶

Show information about multiple changesets.

If the optional revision URL argument is absent, information about all changesets starting at tip will be rendered. If the revision argument is present, changesets will be shown starting from the specified revision.

If revision is absent, the rev query string argument may be defined. This will perform a search for changesets.

The argument for rev can be a single revision, a revision set, or a literal keyword to search for in changeset data (equivalent to hg log -k).

The revcount query string argument defines the maximum numbers of changesets to render.

For non-searches, the changelog template will be rendered.

/changeset[/{revision}]¶

Show information about a single changeset.

A URL path argument is the changeset identifier to show. See hg help revisions for possible values. If not defined, the tip changeset will be shown.

The changeset template is rendered. Contents of the changesettag, changesetbookmark, filenodelink, filenolink, and the many templates related to diffs may all be used to produce the output.

/comparison/{revision}/{path}¶

Show a comparison between the old and new versions of a file from changes made on a particular revision.

This is similar to the diff handler. However, this form features a split or side-by-side diff rather than a unified diff.

The context query string argument can be used to control the lines of context in the diff.

The filecomparison template is rendered.

/diff/{revision}/{path}¶

Show how a file changed in a particular commit.

The filediff template is rendered.

This handler is registered under both the /diff and /filediff paths. /diff is used in modern code.

/file/{revision}[/{path}]¶

Show information about a directory or file in the repository.

Info about the path given as a URL parameter will be rendered.

If path is a directory, information about the entries in that directory will be rendered. This form is equivalent to the manifest handler.

If path is a file, information about that file will be shown via the filerevision template.

If path is not defined, information about the root directory will be rendered.

/diff/{revision}/{path}¶

Show how a file changed in a particular commit.

The filediff template is rendered.

This handler is registered under both the /diff and /filediff paths. /diff is used in modern code.

/filelog/{revision}/{path}¶

Show information about the history of a file in the repository.

The revcount query string argument can be defined to control the maximum number of entries to show.

The filelog template will be rendered.

/graph[/{revision}]¶

Show information about the graphical topology of the repository.

Information rendered by this handler can be used to create visual representations of repository topology.

The revision URL parameter controls the starting changeset. If it's absent, the default is tip.

The revcount query string argument can define the number of changesets to show information for.

The graphtop query string argument can specify the starting changeset for producing jsdata variable that is used for rendering graph in JavaScript. By default it has the same value as revision.

This handler will render the graph template.

/help[/{topic}]¶

Render help documentation.

This web command is roughly equivalent to hg help. If a topic is defined, that help topic will be rendered. If not, an index of available help topics will be rendered.

The help template will be rendered when requesting help for a topic. helptopics will be rendered for the index of help topics.

/log[/{revision}[/{path}]]¶

Show repository or file history.

For URLs of the form /log/{revision}, a list of changesets starting at the specified changeset identifier is shown. If {revision} is not defined, the default is tip. This form is equivalent to the changelog handler.

For URLs of the form /log/{revision}/{file}, the history for a specific file will be shown. This form is equivalent to the filelog handler.

/manifest[/{revision}[/{path}]]¶

Show information about a directory.

If the URL path arguments are omitted, information about the root directory for the tip changeset will be shown.

Because this handler can only show information for directories, it is recommended to use the file handler instead, as it can handle both directories and files.

The manifest template will be rendered for this handler.

/changeset[/{revision}]¶

Show information about a single changeset.

A URL path argument is the changeset identifier to show. See hg help revisions for possible values. If not defined, the tip changeset will be shown.

The changeset template is rendered. Contents of the changesettag, changesetbookmark, filenodelink, filenolink, and the many templates related to diffs may all be used to produce the output.

/shortlog¶

Show basic information about a set of changesets.

This accepts the same parameters as the changelog handler. The only difference is the shortlog template will be rendered instead of the changelog template.

/summary¶

Show a summary of repository state.

Information about the latest changesets, bookmarks, tags, and branches is captured by this handler.

The summary template is rendered.

/tags¶

Show information about tags.

No arguments are accepted.

The tags template is rendered.

Available merge tools¶

External merge tools and their properties are configured in the merge-tools configuration section - see hgrc(5) - but they can often just be named by their executable.

A merge tool is generally usable if its executable can be found on the system and if it can handle the merge. The executable is found if it is an absolute or relative executable path or the name of an application in the executable search path. The tool is assumed to be able to handle the merge if it can handle symlinks if the file is a symlink, if it can handle binary files if the file is binary, and if a GUI is available if the tool requires a GUI.

There are some internal merge tools which can be used. The internal merge tools are:

Internal tools are always available and do not require a GUI but will by default not handle symlinks or binary files. See next section for detail about "actual capabilities" described above.

Choosing a merge tool¶

Mercurial uses these rules when deciding which merge tool to use:

For historical reason, Mercurial treats merge tools as below while examining rules above.

Each capability column indicates Mercurial behavior for internal/external merge tools at examining each rule.

If merge.strict-capability-check configuration is true, Mercurial checks capabilities of merge tools strictly in (*) cases above (= each capability column becomes "?/?"). It is false by default for backward compatibility.

Note

After selecting a merge program, Mercurial will by default attempt to merge the files using a simple merge algorithm first. Only if it doesn't succeed because of conflicting changes will Mercurial actually execute the merge program. Whether to use the simple merge algorithm first can be controlled by the premerge setting of the merge tool. Premerge is enabled by default unless the file is binary or a symlink.

See the merge-tools and ui sections of hgrc(5) for details on the configuration of merge tools.

What are phases?¶

Phases are a system for tracking which changesets have been or should be shared. This helps prevent common mistakes when modifying history (for instance, with the mq or rebase extensions).

Each changeset in a repository is in one of the following phases:

These phases are ordered (public < draft < secret) and no changeset can be in a lower phase than its ancestors. For instance, if a changeset is public, all its ancestors are also public. Lastly, changeset phases should only be changed towards the public phase.

How are phases managed?¶

For the most part, phases should work transparently. By default, a changeset is created in the draft phase and is moved into the public phase when it is pushed to another repository.

Once changesets become public, extensions like mq and rebase will refuse to operate on them to prevent creating duplicate changesets. Phases can also be manually manipulated with the hg phase command if needed. See hg help -v phase for examples.

To make your commits secret by default, put this in your configuration file:

[phases]
new-commit = secret

Phases and servers¶

Normally, all servers are publishing by default. This means:

- all draft changesets that are pulled or cloned appear in phase
public on the client
- all draft changesets that are pushed appear as public on both
client and server
- secret changesets are neither pushed, pulled, or cloned

Note

Pulling a draft changeset from a publishing server does not mark it as public on the server side due to the read-only nature of pull.

Sometimes it may be desirable to push and pull changesets in the draft phase to share unfinished work. This can be done by setting a repository to disable publishing in its configuration file:

[phases]
publish = False

See hg help config for more information on configuration files.

Note

Servers running older versions of Mercurial are treated as publishing.

Note

Changesets in secret phase are not exchanged with the server. This applies to their content: file names, file contents, and changeset metadata. For technical reasons, the identifier (e.g. d825e4025e39) of the secret changeset may be communicated to the server.

Examples¶

See hg help phase for more information on manually manipulating phases.

Specifying single 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.

Finally, commands that expect a single revision (like hg update) also accept revsets (see below for details). When given a revset, they use the last revision of the revset. A few commands accept two single revisions (like hg diff). When given a revset, they use the first and the last revisions of the revset.

Specifying multiple revisions¶

Mercurial supports a functional language for selecting a set of revisions. Expressions in this language are called revsets.

The language supports a number of predicates which are joined by infix operators. Parenthesis can be used for grouping.

Identifiers such as branch names may need quoting with single or double quotes if they contain characters like - or if they match one of the predefined predicates.

Special characters can be used in quoted identifiers by escaping them, e.g., \n is interpreted as a newline. To prevent them from being interpreted, strings can be prefixed with r, e.g. r'...'.

Operators¶

There is a single prefix operator:

These are the supported infix operators:

There is a single postfix operator:

Patterns¶

Where noted, predicates that perform string matching can accept a pattern string. The pattern may be either a literal, or a regular expression. If the pattern starts with re:, the remainder of the pattern is treated as a regular expression. Otherwise, it is treated as a literal. To match a pattern that actually starts with re:, use the prefix literal:.

Matching is case-sensitive, unless otherwise noted. To perform a case- insensitive match on a case-sensitive predicate, use a regular expression, prefixed with (?i).

For example, tag(r're:(?i)release') matches "release" or "RELEASE" or "Release", etc.

Predicates¶

The following predicates are supported:

Aliases¶

New predicates (known as "aliases") can be defined, using any combination of existing predicates or other aliases. An alias definition looks like:

<alias> = <definition>

in the revsetalias section of a Mercurial configuration file. Arguments of the form a1, a2, etc. are substituted from the alias into the definition.

For example,

[revsetalias]
h = heads()
d(s) = sort(s, date)
rs(s, k) = reverse(sort(s, k))

defines three aliases, h, d, and rs. rs(0:tip, author) is exactly equivalent to reverse(sort(0:tip, author)).

Equivalents¶

Command line equivalents for hg log:

-f    ->  ::.
-d x  ->  date(x)
-k x  ->  keyword(x)
-m    ->  merge()
-u x  ->  user(x)
-b x  ->  branch(x)
-P x  ->  !::x
-l x  ->  limit(expr, x)

Examples¶

Some sample queries:

Word of Caution¶

Using the Rust extension might result in the use of various repository formats that are not supported by non-Rust mercurial. When using a Mercurial without Rust support on the same repositories, you might need to downgrade your repository formats and/or activate cripplingly slow paths for compatibility. For details, see:

In addition, while the tests are run with the Rust code, there might be subtle undetected divergences from the historical non-Rust code. So keep your eyes open and report any oddity. Rust is not considered a first class citizen to the project yet.

Compatibility¶

Though the Rust extensions are only tested by the project under Linux, users of MacOS, FreeBSD and other UNIX-likes have been using the Rust extensions. Your mileage may vary, but by all means do give us feedback or signal your interest for better support.

For compatibility with non-Rust version of Mercurial check the previous "Word of Caution" section.

No Rust extensions are available for Windows at this time.

Features¶

The following operations are sped up when using Rust:

More features are in the works, and improvements on the above listed are still in progress. For more experimental work see the "rhg" section.

Checking for Rust¶

You may already have the Rust extensions depending on how you install Mercurial:

$ hg debuginstall | grep -i rust
checking Rust extensions (installed)
checking module policy (rust+c-allow)

If those lines don't even exist, you're using an old version of hg which does not have any Rust extensions yet.

Installing¶

You will need cargo to be in your $PATH. See the "MSRV" section for which version to use.

Using pip¶

Users of pip can install the Rust extensions with the following command:

$ pip install mercurial \


      --global-option \


      --rust \


      --no-use-pep517 \


      --no-binary mercurial

--no-use-pep517 is here to tell pip to preserve backwards compatibility with the legacy setup.py system. Mercurial has not yet migrated its complex setup to the new system, so we still need this to add compiled extensions.

--no-binary is there to tell pip to not use the pre-compiled wheels that are missing rust support. This might take a couple of minutes because you're compiling everything.

See the "Checking for Rust" section to see if the install succeeded.

From your distribution¶

Some distributions are shipping Mercurial with Rust extensions enabled and pre-compiled (meaning you won't have to install cargo), or allow you to specify an install flag. Check with your specific distribution for how to do that, or ask their team to add support for hg+Rust!

From source¶

Please refer to the rust/README.rst file in the Mercurial repository for instructions on how to install from source.

MSRV¶

The minimum supported Rust version is defined in rust/clippy.toml. The project's policy is to keep it at or below the version from Debian testing, to make the distributions' job easier.

rhg¶

There exists an experimental pure-Rust version of Mercurial called rhg with a fallback mechanism for unsupported invocations. It allows for much faster execution of certain commands while adding no discernable overhead for the rest.

The only way of trying it out is by building it from source. Please refer to rust/README.rst in the Mercurial repository.

See hg help config.rhg for configuration options.

Contributing¶

If you would like to help the Rust endeavor, please refer to rust/README.rst in the Mercurial repository.

Choosing an Interface¶

Machines have a choice of several methods to interface with Mercurial. These include:

Executing hg processes is very similar to how humans interact with Mercurial in the shell. It should already be familiar to you.

hg serve can be used to start a server. By default, this will start a "hgweb" HTTP server. This HTTP server has support for machine-readable output, such as JSON. For more, see hg help hgweb.

hg serve can also start a "command server." Clients can connect to this server and issue Mercurial commands over a special protocol. For more details on the command server, including links to client libraries, see https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/CommandServer.

hg serve based interfaces (the hgweb and command servers) have the advantage over simple hg process invocations in that they are likely more efficient. This is because there is significant overhead to spawn new Python processes.

Tip

If you need to invoke several hg processes in short order and/or performance is important to you, use of a server-based interface is highly recommended.

Environment Variables¶

As documented in hg help environment, various environment variables influence the operation of Mercurial. The following are particularly relevant for machines consuming Mercurial:

Command-line Flags¶

Mercurial's default command-line parser is designed for humans, and is not robust against malicious input. For instance, you can start a debugger by passing --debugger as an option value:

$ REV=--debugger sh -c 'hg log -r "$REV"'

This happens because several command-line flags need to be scanned without using a concrete command table, which may be modified while loading repository settings and extensions.

Since Mercurial 4.4.2, the parsing of such flags may be restricted by setting HGPLAIN=+strictflags. When this feature is enabled, all early options (e.g. -R/--repository, --cwd, --config) must be specified first amongst the other global options, and cannot be injected to an arbitrary location:

$ HGPLAIN=+strictflags hg -R "$REPO" log -r "$REV"

In earlier Mercurial versions where +strictflags isn't available, you can mitigate the issue by concatenating an option value with its flag:

$ hg log -r"$REV" --keyword="$KEYWORD"

Consuming Command Output¶

It is common for machines to need to parse the output of Mercurial commands for relevant data. This section describes the various techniques for doing so.

Parsing Raw Command Output¶

Likely the simplest and most effective solution for consuming command output is to simply invoke hg commands as you would as a user and parse their output.

The output of many commands can easily be parsed with tools like grep, sed, and awk.

A potential downside with parsing command output is that the output of commands can change when Mercurial is upgraded. While Mercurial does generally strive for strong backwards compatibility, command output does occasionally change. Having tests for your automated interactions with hg commands is generally recommended, but is even more important when raw command output parsing is involved.

Using Templates to Control Output¶

Many hg commands support templatized output via the -T/--template argument. For more, see hg help templates.

Templates are useful for explicitly controlling output so that you get exactly the data you want formatted how you want it. For example, log -T {node}\n can be used to print a newline delimited list of changeset nodes instead of a human-tailored output containing authors, dates, descriptions, etc.

Tip

If parsing raw command output is too complicated, consider using templates to make your life easier.

The -T/--template argument allows specifying pre-defined styles. Mercurial ships with the machine-readable styles cbor, json, and xml, which provide CBOR, JSON, and XML output, respectively. These are useful for producing output that is machine readable as-is.

(Mercurial 5.0 is required for CBOR style.)

Important

The json and xml styles are considered experimental. While they may be attractive to use for easily obtaining machine-readable output, their behavior may change in subsequent versions.

These styles may also exhibit unexpected results when dealing with certain encodings. Mercurial treats things like filenames as a series of bytes and normalizing certain byte sequences to JSON or XML with certain encoding settings can lead to surprises.

Command Server Output¶

If using the command server to interact with Mercurial, you are likely using an existing library/API that abstracts implementation details of the command server. If so, this interface layer may perform parsing for you, saving you the work of implementing it yourself.

Output Verbosity¶

Commands often have varying output verbosity, even when machine readable styles are being used (e.g. -T json). Adding -v/--verbose and --debug to the command's arguments can increase the amount of data exposed by Mercurial.

An alternate way to get the data you need is by explicitly specifying a template.

Other Topics¶

Adding a Subrepository¶

If .hgsub does not exist, create it and add it to the parent repository. Clone or checkout the external projects where you want it to live in the parent repository. Edit .hgsub and add the subrepository entry as described above. At this point, the subrepository is tracked and the next commit will record its state in .hgsubstate and bind it to the committed changeset.

Synchronizing a Subrepository¶

Subrepos do not automatically track the latest changeset of their sources. Instead, they are updated to the changeset that corresponds with the changeset checked out in the top-level changeset. This is so developers always get a consistent set of compatible code and libraries when they update.

Thus, updating subrepos is a manual process. Simply check out target subrepo at the desired revision, test in the top-level repo, then commit in the parent repository to record the new combination.

Deleting a Subrepository¶

To remove a subrepository from the parent repository, delete its reference from .hgsub, then remove its files.

Interaction with Mercurial Commands¶

Remapping Subrepositories Sources¶

A subrepository source location may change during a project life, invalidating references stored in the parent repository history. To fix this, rewriting rules can be defined in parent repository hgrc file or in Mercurial configuration. See the [subpaths] section in hgrc(5) for more details.

Keywords¶

Strings in curly braces are called keywords. The availability of keywords depends on the exact context of the templater. These keywords are usually available for templating a log-like command: