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HG(1) Mercurial Manual HG(1)

NAME

hg - Mercurial source code management system

SYNOPSIS

hg command [option]... [argument]...

DESCRIPTION

The hg command provides a command line interface to the Mercurial system.

COMMAND ELEMENTS

indicates one or more filename or relative path filenames; see File Name Patterns for information on pattern matching
indicates a path on the local machine
indicates a changeset which can be specified as a changeset revision number, a tag, or a unique substring of the changeset hash value
either the pathname of a local repository or the URI of a remote repository.

OPTIONS

repository root directory or name of overlay bundle file
change working directory
do not prompt, assume 'yes' for any required answers
suppress output
enable additional output
set/override config option
enable debugging output
start debugger
set the charset encoding (default: UTF-8)
set the charset encoding mode (default: strict)
always print a traceback on exception
time how long the command takes
print command execution profile
output version information and exit
display help and exit

COMMANDS

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.

options:

include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
do not perform actions, just print output


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

New files are ignored if they match any of the patterns in commit.

Use the -s/--similarity option to detect renamed files. With a parameter greater than 0, this compares every removed file with every added file and records those similar enough as renames. This option takes a percentage between 0 (disabled) and 100 (files must be identical) as its parameter. Detecting renamed files this way can be expensive.

options:

guess renamed files by similarity (0<=s<=100)
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
do not perform actions, just print output


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.

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.

options:

annotate the specified revision
follow file copies and renames
treat all files as text
list the author (long with -v)
list the date (short with -q)
list the revision number (default)
list the changeset
show line number at the first appearance
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns

aliases: blame


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

To specify the type of archive to create, use -t/--type. Valid types are:

"files" (default): a directory full of files
"tar": tar archive, uncompressed
"tbz2": tar archive, compressed using bzip2
"tgz": tar archive, compressed using gzip
"uzip": zip archive, uncompressed
"zip": zip archive, compressed using deflate
    

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.

options:

do not pass files through decoders
directory prefix for files in archive
revision to distribute
type of distribution to create
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


Commit the backed out changes as a new changeset. The new changeset is a child of the backed out changeset.

If you backout a changeset other than the tip, a new head is created. This head will be the new tip and you should merge this backout changeset with another head.

The --merge option remembers the parent of the working directory before starting the backout, then merges the new head with that changeset afterwards. This saves you from doing the merge by hand. The result of this merge is not committed, as with a normal merge.

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

options:

merge with old dirstate parent after backout
parent to choose when backing out merge
revision to backout
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
use <text> as commit message
read commit message from <file>
record datecode as commit date
record the specified user as committer


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. Its exit status 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.

options:

reset bisect state
mark changeset good
mark changeset bad
skip testing changeset
use command to check changeset state
do not update to target


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, even if it's inactive.

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 as closed.

options:

set branch name even if it shadows an existing branch
reset branch name to parent branch name


branches [-a]

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).

If -a/--active is specified, only show active branches. A branch is considered active if it contains repository heads.

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

options:

show only branches that have unmerged heads
show normal and closed branches


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

Generate a compressed changegroup file collecting changesets not known to be in another repository.

If no destination repository is specified the destination is assumed to have all the nodes specified by one or more --base parameters. To create a bundle containing all changesets, use -a/--all (or --base null).

You can change compression method with the -t/--type option. The available compression methods are: none, bzip2, and gzip (by default, bundles are compressed using 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.

options:

run even when remote repository is unrelated
a changeset up to which you would like to bundle
a base changeset to specify instead of a destination
bundle all changesets in the repository
bundle compression type to use (default: bzip2)
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side


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

Output may be to a file, in which case the name of the file is given using a format string. The formatting rules are the same as for the export command, with the following additions:

%s   basename of file being printed
%d   dirname of file being printed, or '.' if in repository root
%p   root-relative path name of file being printed
    

options:

print output to file with formatted name
print the given revision
apply any matching decode filter
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


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

See 'hg help urls' for valid source format details.

It is possible to specify an ssh:// URL as the destination, but no Please see 'hg help urls' for important details about ssh:// URLs.

If the -U/--noupdate option is specified, the new clone will contain only a repository (.hg) and no working copy (the working copy parent will be the null changeset). Otherwise, clone will initially check out (in order of precedence):

the changeset, tag or branch specified with -u/--updaterev
the changeset, tag or branch given with the first -r/--rev
the head of the default branch



Use 'hg clone -u . src dst' to checkout the source repository's parent changeset (applicable for local source repositories only).

A set of changesets (tags, or branch names) to pull may be specified by listing each changeset (tag, or branch name) with -r/--rev. If -r/--rev is used, the cloned repository will contain only a subset of the changesets of the source repository. Only the set of changesets defined by all -r/--rev options (including all their ancestors) will be pulled into the destination repository. No subsequent changesets (including subsequent tags) will be present in the destination.

Using -r/--rev (or 'clone src#rev dest') implies --pull, even for local source repositories.

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 checked out files). Some filesystems, such as AFS, implement hardlinking incorrectly, but do not report errors. In these cases, use the --pull option to avoid hardlinking.

In some cases, you can clone repositories and checked out files using full hardlinks with

$ cp -al REPO REPOCLONE

This is the fastest way to clone, but it is not always safe. The operation is not atomic (making sure REPO is not modified during the operation is up to you) and you have to make sure your editor breaks hardlinks (Emacs and most Linux Kernel tools do so). Also, this is not compatible with certain extensions that place their metadata under the .hg directory, such as mq.

options:

the clone will only contain a repository (no working copy)
revision, tag or branch to check out
a changeset you would like to have after cloning
use pull protocol to copy metadata
use uncompressed transfer (fast over LAN)
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side


Commit changes to the given files into the repository. Unlike a centralized RCS, 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, the configured editor is started to prompt you for a message.

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

options:

mark new/missing files as added/removed before committing
mark a branch as closed, hiding it from the branch list
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
use <text> as commit message
read commit message from <file>
record datecode as commit date
record the specified user as committer

aliases: ci


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.

This command takes effect with the next commit. To undo a copy before that, see hg revert.

options:

record a copy that has already occurred
forcibly copy over an existing managed file
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
do not perform actions, just print output

aliases: cp


Show differences between revisions for the specified files.

Differences between files are shown using the unified diff format.

NOTE: 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.

When two revision arguments are given, then changes are shown between those revisions. If only one revision is specified then that revision is compared to the working directory, and, when no revisions are specified, the working directory files are compared to its parent.

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'.

options:

revision
change made by revision
treat all files as text
use git extended diff format
don't include dates in diff headers
show which function each change is in
produce a diff that undoes the changes
ignore white space when comparing lines
ignore changes in the amount of white space
ignore changes whose lines are all blank
number of lines of context to show
output diffstat-style summary of changes
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


Print the changeset header and diffs for one or more revisions.

The information shown in the changeset header is: author, changeset hash, parent(s) and commit comment.

NOTE: 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 format string. The formatting rules are as follows:

%%   literal "%" character
%H   changeset hash (40 bytes of hexadecimal)
%N   number of patches being generated
%R   changeset revision number
%b   basename of the exporting repository
%h   short-form changeset hash (12 bytes of hexadecimal)
%n   zero-padded sequence number, starting at 1
%r   zero-padded changeset revision number
    

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.

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.

options:

print output to file with formatted name
diff against the second parent
treat all files as text
use git extended diff format
don't include dates in diff headers


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

options:

include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


Search revisions of files for a regular expression.

This command behaves differently than Unix grep. It only accepts Python/Perl regexps. It searches repository history, not the working directory. It always prints the revision number in which a match appears.

By default, grep only prints output for the first revision of a file in which it finds a match. To get it to print every revision 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 --all flag.

options:

-0, --print0
end fields with NUL
print all revisions that match
follow changeset history, or file history across copies and renames
ignore case when matching
print only filenames and revisions that match
print matching line numbers
search in given revision range
list the author (long with -v)
list the date (short with -q)
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


With no arguments, show all repository head changesets.

Repository "heads" are changesets with no child changesets. They are where development generally takes place and are the usual targets for update and merge operations.

If one or more REV is given, the "branch heads" will be shown for the named branch associated with the specified changeset(s).

Branch heads are changesets on a named branch with no descendants on the same branch. A branch head could be a "true" (repository) head, or it could be the last changeset on that branch before it was merged into another branch, or it could be the last changeset on the branch before a new branch was created. If none of the branch heads are true heads, the branch is considered inactive.

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.

options:

show only heads which are descendants of REV
show only the active branch heads from open branches
show normal and closed branch heads
display using template map file
display with template


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

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


With no revision, print a summary of the current state of the repository.

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

This summary identifies the repository state using one or two parent hash identifiers, followed by a "+" if there are uncommitted changes in the working directory, a list of tags for this revision and a branch name for non-default branches.

options:

identify the specified revision
show local revision number
show global revision id
show branch
show tags

aliases: id


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

If there are outstanding changes in the working directory, import will abort unless given the -f/--force flag.

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 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 may happen due to character set problems or other deficiencies in the text patch format.

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

To read a patch from standard input, use "-" as the patch name. If a URL is specified, the patch will be downloaded from it. See 'hg help dates' for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

options:

directory strip option for patch. This has the same meaning as the corresponding patch option (default: 1)
base path
skip check for outstanding uncommitted changes
don't commit, just update the working directory
apply patch to the nodes from which it was generated
use any branch information in patch (implied by --exact)
use <text> as commit message
read commit message from <file>
record datecode as commit date
record the specified user as committer
guess renamed files by similarity (0<=s<=100)

aliases: patch


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

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

See pull for valid source format details.

options:

run even when remote repository is unrelated
show newest record first
file to store the bundles into
a specific remote revision up to which you would like to pull
show patch
use git extended diff format
limit number of changes displayed
do not show merges
display using template map file
display with template
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side

aliases: in


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.

options:

specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side


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.

options:

search the repository as it stood at REV
-0, --print0
end filenames with NUL, for use with xargs
print complete paths from the filesystem root
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


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

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 or descendants of the starting revision. --follow-first only follows the first parent of merge revisions.

If no revision range is specified, the default is tip:0 unless --follow is set, in which case the working directory parent is used as the starting revision.

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

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.

NOTE: log -p/--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:.

options:

follow changeset history, or file history across copies and renames
only follow the first parent of merge changesets
show revisions matching date spec
show copied files
do case-insensitive search for a keyword
show the specified revision or range
include revisions where files were removed
show only merges
revisions committed by user
show only changesets within the given named branch
do not display revision or any of its ancestors
show patch
use git extended diff format
limit number of changes displayed
do not show merges
display using template map file
display with template
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns

aliases: history


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.

options:

revision to display


merge [-f] [[-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.

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 with must be provided.

options:

force a merge with outstanding changes
revision to merge
review revisions to merge (no merge is performed)


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 valid destination format details.

options:

run even when remote repository is unrelated
a specific revision up to which you would like to push
show newest record first
show patch
use git extended diff format
limit number of changes displayed
do not show merges
display using template map file
display with template
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side

aliases: out


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.

options:

show parents from the specified revision
display using template map file
display with template


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

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

See 'hg help urls' for more information.


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.

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 added those changes to the repository, you should use 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.

options:

update to new tip if changesets were pulled
run even when remote repository is unrelated
a specific remote revision up to which you would like to pull
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side


Push changes from the local repository to the given destination.

This is the symmetrical operation for pull. It moves changes from the current repository to a different one. If the destination is local this is identical to a pull in that directory from the current one.

By default, push will refuse to run if it detects the result would increase the number of remote heads. This generally indicates the user forgot to pull and merge before pushing.

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

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

options:

force push
a specific revision up to which you would like to push
specify ssh command to use
specify hg command to run on the remote side


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.


remove [OPTION]... FILE...

Schedule the indicated files for removal from the repository.

This only removes files from the current branch, not from the entire project history. -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):


A C M ! none W RD W R -f R RD RD R -A W W W R -Af R R R R

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

options:

record delete for missing files
remove (and delete) file even if added or modified
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns

aliases: rm


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.

This command takes effect at the next commit. To undo a rename before that, see hg revert.

options:

record a rename that has already occurred
forcibly copy over an existing managed file
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
do not perform actions, just print output

aliases: mv


This command can cleanly retry unresolved file merges using file revisions preserved from the last update or merge.

If a conflict is resolved manually, please note that the changes will be overwritten if the merge is retried with resolve. The -m/--mark switch should be used to mark the file as resolved.

You can specify a set of files to operate on, or use the -a/-all switch to select all unresolved files.

This command also allows listing resolved files and manually indicating whether or not files are resolved. All files must be marked as resolved before a commit is permitted.

The codes used to show the status of files are:

U = unresolved
R = resolved
    

options:

select all unresolved files
list state of files needing merge
mark files as resolved
unmark files as resolved
hide status prefix
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns


(Use update -r to check out earlier revisions, revert does not change the working directory parents.)

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

Using the -r/--rev option, revert the given files or directories to their contents as of a specific revision. This can be helpful to "roll back" some or all of an earlier change. See 'hg help dates' for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.

Revert modifies the working directory. It does not commit any changes, or change the parent of the working directory. If you revert to a revision other than the parent of the working directory, the reverted files will thus appear modified afterwards.

If a file has been deleted, it is restored. If the executable mode of a file was changed, it is reset.

If names are given, all files matching the names are reverted. If no arguments are given, no files are reverted.

Modified files are saved with a .orig suffix before reverting. To disable these backups, use --no-backup.

options:

revert all changes when no arguments given
tipmost revision matching date
revision to revert to
do not save backup copies of files
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns
do not perform actions, just print output


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:

commit
import
pull
push (with this repository as destination)
unbundle
    

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.


Print the root directory of the current repository.


Start a local HTTP repository browser and pull server.

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

options:

name of access log file to write to
run server in background
used internally by daemon mode
name of error log file to write to
port to listen on (default: 8000)
address to listen on (default: all interfaces)
prefix path to serve from (default: server root)
name to show in web pages (default: working directory)
name of the webdir config file (serve more than one repository)
name of file to write process ID to
for remote clients
web templates to use
template style to use
-6, --ipv6
use IPv6 in addition to IPv4
SSL certificate file


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.

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

options:

show untrusted configuration options

aliases: debugconfig


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: 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 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 listed as A (added)

options:

show status of all files
show only modified files
show only added files
show only removed files
show only deleted (but tracked) files
show only files without changes
show only unknown (not tracked) files
show only ignored files
hide status prefix
show source of copied files
-0, --print0
end filenames with NUL, for use with xargs
show difference from revision
include names matching the given patterns
exclude names matching the given patterns

aliases: st


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

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

options:

check for push and pull

aliases: sum


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.

If no revision is given, the parent of the working directory is used, or tip if no revision is checked out.

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. The file '.hg/localtags' is used for local tags (not shared among repositories).

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

options:

replace existing tag
make the tag local
revision to tag
remove a tag
use <text> as commit message
record datecode as commit date
record the specified user as committer


tags

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


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.

options:

show patch
use git extended diff format
display using template map file
display with template


Apply one or more compressed changegroup files generated by the bundle command.

options:

update to new tip if changesets were unbundled


Update the repository's working directory to the specified changeset.

If no changeset is specified, attempt to update to the head of the current branch. If this head is a descendant of the working directory's parent, update to it, otherwise abort.

The following rules apply when the working directory contains uncommitted changes:

1.
If neither -c/--check nor -C/--clean is specified, and if the requested changeset is an ancestor or descendant of the working directory's parent, the uncommitted changes are merged into the requested changeset and the merged result is left uncommitted. If the requested changeset is not an ancestor or descendant (that is, it is on another branch), the update is aborted and the uncommitted changes are preserved.
2.
With the -c/--check option, the update is aborted and the uncommitted changes are preserved.
3.
With the -C/--clean option, uncommitted changes are discarded and the working directory is updated to the requested changeset.

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

If you want to update just one file to an older changeset, use 'hg revert'.

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

options:

discard uncommitted changes (no backup)
check for uncommitted changes
tipmost revision matching date
revision

aliases: up checkout co


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.


version

output version and copyright information


CONFIGURATION FILES

Mercurial reads configuration data from several files, if they exist. Below we list the most specific file first.

On Windows, these configuration files are read:

  • <repo>\.hg\hgrc
  • %USERPROFILE%\.hgrc
  • %USERPROFILE%\Mercurial.ini
  • %HOME%\.hgrc
  • %HOME%\Mercurial.ini
  • C:\Mercurial\Mercurial.ini
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercurial
  • <install-dir>\Mercurial.ini

On Unix, these files are read:

  • <repo>/.hg/hgrc
  • $HOME/.hgrc
  • /etc/mercurial/hgrc
  • /etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc
  • <install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc
  • <install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc

The configuration files for Mercurial use a simple ini-file format. A configuration file consists of sections, led by a [section] header and followed by name = value entries:

[ui]
username = Firstname Lastname <firstname.lastname@example.net>
verbose = True

This above entries will be referred to as ui.username and ui.verbose, respectively. Please see the hgrc man page for a full description of the possible configuration values:


DATE FORMATS

Some commands allow the user to specify a date, e.g.:

  • backout, commit, import, tag: Specify the commit date.
  • log, revert, update: Select revision(s) by date.

Many date formats are valid. Here are some examples:

"Wed Dec 6 13:18:29 2006" (local timezone assumed)
"Dec 6 13:18 -0600" (year assumed, time offset provided)
"Dec 6 13:18 UTC" (UTC and GMT are aliases for +0000)
"Dec 6" (midnight)
"13:18" (today assumed)
"3:39" (3:39AM assumed)
"3:39pm" (15:39)
"2006-12-06 13:18:29" (ISO 8601 format)
"2006-12-6 13:18"
"2006-12-6"
"12-6"
"12/6"
"12/6/6" (Dec 6 2006)

Lastly, there is Mercurial's internal format:

"1165432709 0" (Wed Dec 6 13:18:29 2006 UTC)

This is the internal representation format for dates. unixtime is the number of seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 00:00 UTC). offset is the offset of the local timezone, in seconds west of UTC (negative if the timezone is east of UTC).

The log command also accepts date ranges:

"<{datetime}" - at or before a given date/time
">{datetime}" - on or after a given date/time
"{datetime} to {datetime}" - a date range, inclusive
"-{days}" - within a given number of days of today

FILE NAME PATTERNS

Mercurial accepts several notations for identifying one or more files at a time.

By default, Mercurial treats filenames as shell-style extended glob patterns.

Alternate pattern notations must be specified explicitly.

To use a plain path name without any pattern matching, start it with path:. These path names must completely match starting at the current repository root.

To use an extended glob, start a name with glob:. Globs are rooted at the current directory; a glob such as *.c will only match files in the current directory ending with .c.

The supported glob syntax extensions are ** to match any string across path separators and {a,b} to mean "a or b".

To use a Perl/Python regular expression, start a name with re:. Regexp pattern matching is anchored at the root of the repository.

Plain examples:

path:foo/bar   a name bar in a directory named foo in the root

of the repository path:path:name a file or directory named "path:name"

Glob examples:

glob:*.c       any name ending in ".c" in the current directory
*.c            any name ending in ".c" in the current directory
**.c           any name ending in ".c" in any subdirectory of the

current directory including itself. foo/*.c any name ending in ".c" in the directory foo foo/**.c any name ending in ".c" in any subdirectory of foo
including itself.

Regexp examples:

re:.*\.c$      any name ending in ".c", anywhere in the repository

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Path to the 'hg' executable, automatically passed when running hooks, extensions or external tools. If unset or empty, this is the hg executable's name if it's frozen, or an executable named 'hg' (with %PATHEXT% [defaulting to COM/EXE/BAT/CMD] extensions on Windows) is searched.
This is the name of the editor to run when committing. See EDITOR.

(deprecated, use .hgrc)

This overrides the default locale setting detected by Mercurial. This setting is used to convert data including usernames, changeset descriptions, tag names, and branches. This setting can be overridden with the --encoding command-line option.
This sets Mercurial's behavior for handling unknown characters while transcoding user input. The default is "strict", which causes Mercurial to abort if it can't map a character. Other settings include "replace", which replaces unknown characters, and "ignore", which drops them. This setting can be overridden with the --encodingmode command-line option.
An executable to use for resolving merge conflicts. The program will be executed with three arguments: local file, remote file, ancestor file.

(deprecated, use .hgrc)

A list of files or directories to search for hgrc files. Item separator is ":" on Unix, ";" on Windows. If HGRCPATH is not set, platform default search path is used. If empty, only the .hg/hgrc from the current repository is read.

For each element in HGRCPATH:

  • if it's a directory, all files ending with .rc are added
  • otherwise, the file itself will be added

This is the string used as the author of a commit. If not set, available values will be considered in this order:
  • HGUSER (deprecated)
  • hgrc files from the HGRCPATH
  • EMAIL
  • interactive prompt
  • LOGNAME (with @hostname appended)

(deprecated, use .hgrc)

May be used as the author of a commit; see HGUSER.
May be used as the author of a commit; see HGUSER.
This is the name of the editor to use when committing. See EDITOR.
Sometimes Mercurial needs to open a text file in an editor for a user to modify, for example when writing commit messages. The editor it uses is determined by looking at the environment variables HGEDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR, in that order. The first non-empty one is chosen. If all of them are empty, the editor defaults to 'vi'.
This is used by Python to find imported modules and may need to be set appropriately if this Mercurial is not installed system-wide.

SPECIFYING SINGLE REVISIONS

Mercurial supports several ways to specify individual revisions.

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

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

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

Any other string is treated as a tag or branch name. A tag name is a symbolic name associated with a revision identifier. A branch name denotes the tipmost revision of that branch. Tag and branch names must not contain the ":" character.

The reserved name "tip" is a special tag that 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.

SPECIFYING MULTIPLE REVISIONS

When Mercurial accepts more than one revision, they may be specified individually, or provided as a topologically continuous range, separated by the ":" character.

The syntax of range notation is [BEGIN]:[END], where BEGIN and END are revision identifiers. Both BEGIN and END are optional. If BEGIN is not specified, it defaults to revision number 0. If END is not specified, it defaults to the tip. The range ":" thus means "all revisions".

If BEGIN is greater than END, revisions are treated in reverse order.

A range acts as a closed interval. This means that a range of 3:5 gives 3, 4 and 5. Similarly, a range of 9:6 gives 9, 8, 7, and 6.

DIFF FORMATS

Mercurial's default format for showing changes between two versions of a file is compatible with the unified format of GNU diff, which can be used by GNU patch and many other standard tools.

While this standard format is often enough, it does not encode the following information:

  • executable status and other permission bits
  • copy or rename information
  • changes in binary files
  • creation or deletion of empty files

Mercurial also supports the extended diff format from the git VCS which addresses these limitations. The git diff format is not produced by default because a few widespread tools still do not understand this format.

This means that when generating diffs from a Mercurial repository (e.g. with "hg export"), you should be careful about things like file copies and renames or other things mentioned above, because when applying a standard diff to a different repository, this extra information is lost. Mercurial's internal operations (like push and pull) are not affected by this, because they use an internal binary format for communicating changes.

To make Mercurial produce the git extended diff format, use the --git option available for many commands, or set 'git = True' in the [diff] section of your hgrc. You do not need to set this option when importing diffs in this format or using them in the mq extension.

TEMPLATE USAGE

Mercurial allows you to customize output of commands through templates. You can either pass in a template from the command line, via the --template option, or select an existing template-style (--style).

You can customize output for any "log-like" command: log, outgoing, incoming, tip, parents, heads and glog.

Three styles are packaged with Mercurial: default (the style used when no explicit preference is passed), compact and changelog. Usage:

$ hg log -r1 --style changelog

A template is a piece of text, with markup to invoke variable expansion:

$ hg log -r1 --template "{node}\n"
b56ce7b07c52de7d5fd79fb89701ea538af65746

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:

String. The unmodified author of the changeset.
String. The name of the branch on which the changeset was committed. Will be empty if the branch name was default.
Date information. The date when the changeset was committed.
String. The text of the changeset description.
String. Statistics of changes with the following format: "modified files: +added/-removed lines"
List of strings. All files modified, added, or removed by this changeset.
List of strings. Files added by this changeset.
List of strings. Files modified by this changeset.
List of strings. Files removed by this changeset.
String. The changeset identification hash, as a 40-character hexadecimal string.
List of strings. The parents of the changeset.
Integer. The repository-local changeset revision number.
List of strings. Any tags associated with the changeset.
String. Most recent global tag in the ancestors of this changeset.
Integer. Longest path to the latest tag.

The "date" keyword does not produce human-readable output. If you want to use a date in your output, you can use a filter to process it. Filters are functions which return a string based on the input variable. You can also use a chain of filters to get the desired output:

$ hg tip --template "{date|isodate}\n"
2008-08-21 18:22 +0000

List of filters:

Any text. Add an XHTML "<br />" tag before the end of every line except the last.
Date. Returns a human-readable date/time difference between the given date/time and the current date/time.
Any text. Treats the text as a path, and returns the last component of the path after splitting by the path separator (ignoring trailing separators). For example, "foo/bar/baz" becomes "baz" and "foo/bar//" becomes "bar".
Treat the text as path and strip a directory level, if possible. For example, "foo" and "foo/bar" becomes "foo".
Date. Returns a date in a Unix date format, including the timezone: "Mon Sep 04 15:13:13 2006 0700".
Any text. Finds the first string that looks like an email address, and extracts just the domain component. Example: User <user@example.com> becomes example.com.
Any text. Extracts the first string that looks like an email address. Example: User <user@example.com> becomes user@example.com.
Any text. Replaces the special XML/XHTML characters "&", "<" and ">" with XML entities.
Any text. Wraps the text to fit in 68 columns.
Any text. Wraps the text to fit in 76 columns.
Any text. Returns the first line of text.
Any text. Returns '(none)' if the string is empty.
Date. Returns the date as a pair of numbers: "1157407993 25200" (Unix timestamp, timezone offset).
Date. Returns the date in ISO 8601 format: "2009-08-18 13:00 +0200".
Date. Returns the date in ISO 8601 format, including seconds: "2009-08-18 13:00:13 +0200". See also the rfc3339date filter.
Date. Converts a date to local date.
Any text. Returns the input text rendered as a sequence of XML entities.
Any text. Returns the text before an email address.
Date. Returns a date using the same format used in email headers: "Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:00:13 +0200".
Date. Returns a date using the Internet date format specified in RFC 3339: "2009-08-18T13:00:13+02:00".
Changeset hash. Returns the short form of a changeset hash, i.e. a 12-byte hexadecimal string.
Date. Returns a date like "2006-09-18".
Any text. Strips all leading and trailing whitespace.
Any text. Returns the text, with every line except the first starting with a tab character.
Any text. Escapes all "special" characters. For example, "foo bar" becomes "foo%20bar".
Any text. Returns the user portion of an email address.

URL PATHS

Valid URLs are of the form:

local/filesystem/path[#revision]
file://local/filesystem/path[#revision]
http://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]/[path][#revision]
https://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]/[path][#revision]
ssh://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]/[path][#revision]

Paths in the local filesystem can either point to Mercurial repositories or to bundle files (as created by 'hg bundle' or 'hg incoming --bundle').

An optional identifier after # indicates a particular branch, tag, or changeset to use from the remote repository. See also 'hg help revisions'.

Some features, such as pushing to http:// and https:// URLs are only possible if the feature is explicitly enabled on the remote Mercurial server.

Some notes about using SSH with Mercurial:

  • SSH requires an accessible shell account on the destination machine and a copy of hg in the remote path or specified with as remotecmd.
  • path is relative to the remote user's home directory by default. Use an extra slash at the start of a path to specify an absolute path:

    ssh://example.com//tmp/repository
        
  • Mercurial doesn't use its own compression via SSH; the right thing to do is to configure it in your ~/.ssh/config, e.g.:

    Host *.mylocalnetwork.example.com
    
    Compression no Host *
    Compression yes

    Alternatively specify "ssh -C" as your ssh command in your hgrc or with the --ssh command line option.


These URLs can all be stored in your hgrc with path aliases under the [paths] section like so:

[paths]
alias1 = URL1
alias2 = URL2
...

You can then use the alias for any command that uses a URL (for example 'hg pull alias1' will be treated as 'hg pull URL1').

Two path aliases are special because they are used as defaults when you do not provide the URL to a command:

When you create a repository with hg clone, the clone command saves the location of the source repository as the new repository's 'default' path. This is then used when you omit path from push- and pull-like commands (including incoming and outgoing).
The push command will look for a path named 'default-push', and prefer it over 'default' if both are defined.

USING ADDITIONAL FEATURES

Mercurial has the ability to add new features through the use of extensions. Extensions may add new commands, add options to existing commands, change the default behavior of commands, or implement hooks.

Extensions are not loaded by default for a variety of reasons: they can increase startup overhead; they may be meant for advanced usage only; they may provide potentially dangerous abilities (such as letting you destroy or modify history); they might not be ready for prime time; or they may alter some usual behaviors of stock Mercurial. It is thus up to the user to activate extensions as needed.

To enable the "foo" extension, either shipped with Mercurial or in the Python search path, create an entry for it in your hgrc, like this:

[extensions]
foo =

You may also specify the full path to an extension:

[extensions]
myfeature = ~/.hgext/myfeature.py

To explicitly disable an extension enabled in an hgrc of broader scope, prepend its path with !:

[extensions]
# disabling extension bar residing in /path/to/extension/bar.py
hgext.bar = !/path/to/extension/bar.py
# ditto, but no path was supplied for extension baz
hgext.baz = !

disabled extensions:

hooks for controlling repository access
track a line of development with movable markers
hooks for integrating with the Bugzilla bug tracker
command to display child changesets
command to display statistics about repository history
colorize output from some commands
import revisions from foreign VCS repositories into Mercurial
command to allow external programs to compare revisions
pull, update and merge in one command
commands to sign and verify changesets
command to view revision graphs from a shell
hooks for integrating with the CIA.vc notification service
browse the repository in a graphical way
syntax highlighting for hgweb (requires Pygments)
accelerate status report using Linux's inotify service
expand expressions into changelog and summaries
expand keywords in tracked files
manage a stack of patches
hooks for sending email notifications at commit/push time
browse command output with an external pager
interpret suffixes to refer to ancestor revisions
command to send changesets as (a series of) patch emails
command to delete untracked files from the working directory
command to move sets of revisions to a different ancestor
commands to interactively select changes for commit/qrefresh
recreates hardlinks between repository clones
share a common history between several working directories
command to transplant changesets from another branch
allow the use of MBCS paths with problematic encodings
perform automatic newline conversion
discover and advertise repositories on the local network



FILES

.hgignore

This file contains regular expressions (one per line) that describe file names that should be ignored by hg. For details, see hgignore(5).

.hgtags

This file contains changeset hash values and text tag names (one of each separated by spaces) that correspond to tagged versions of the repository contents.

/etc/mercurial/hgrc, $HOME/.hgrc, .hg/hgrc

This file contains defaults and configuration. Values in .hg/hgrc override those in $HOME/.hgrc, and these override settings made in the global /etc/mercurial/hgrc configuration. See hgrc(5) for details of the contents and format of these files.


Some commands (e.g. revert) produce backup files ending in .orig, if the .orig file already exists and is not tracked by Mercurial, it will be overwritten.

BUGS

Probably lots, please post them to the mailing list (see Resources below) when you find them.

SEE ALSO

hgignore(5), hgrc(5)

AUTHOR

Written by Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>

RESOURCES

Main Web Site: http://mercurial.selenic.com/

Source code repository: http://selenic.com/hg

Mailing list: http://selenic.com/mailman/listinfo/mercurial

COPYING

Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Matt Mackall. Free use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.

AUTHOR

Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>

Organization: Mercurial