Update dates help topic

mercurial/help.py

@@ -1,153 +1,147 b''
 # help.py - help data for mercurial
 #
 # Copyright 2006 Matt Mackall <[e-mail]>
 #
 # This software may be used and distributed according to the terms
 # of the GNU General Public License, incorporated herein by reference.
 
 helptable = {
     "dates|Date Formats":
     r'''
     Some commands (backout, commit, tag) allow the user to specify a date.
-    Possible formats for dates are:
-
-YYYY-mm-dd \HH:MM[:SS] [(+|-)NNNN]::
-    This is a subset of ISO 8601, allowing just the recommended notations
-    for date and time. The last part represents the timezone; if omitted,
-    local time is assumed. Examples:
-
-    "2005-08-22 03:27 -0700"
-
-    "2006-04-19 21:39:51"
+    Many date formats are acceptible. Here are some examples:
 
-aaa bbb dd HH:MM:SS YYYY [(+|-)NNNN]::
-    This is the date format used by the C library. Here, aaa stands for
-    abbreviated weekday name and bbb for abbreviated month name. The last
-    part represents the timezone; if omitted, local time is assumed.
-    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)
+    "2006-12-6 13:18:29" (ISO 8601 format)
+    "2006-12-6 13:18"
+    "2006-12-6"
+    "12-6"
+    "12/6"
+    "12/6/6" (Dec 6 2006)
+    "" (Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 UTC)
 
-    "Mon Aug 22 03:27:00 2005 -0700"
+    Lastly, there is Mercurial's internal format:
 
-    "Wed Apr 19 21:39:51 2006"
+    "1165432709 0" (Wed Dec 6 13:18:29 2006 UTC)
 
-unixtime offset::
     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).
-    Examples:
-
-    "1124706420 25200" (2005-08-22 03:27:00 -0700)
-
-    "1145475591 -7200" (2006-04-19 21:39:51 +0200)
     ''',
 
     'environment|env|Environment Variables':
     r'''
 HGEDITOR::
     This is the name of the editor to use when committing. Defaults to the
     value of EDITOR.
 
     (deprecated, use .hgrc)
 
 HGENCODING::
     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.
 
 HGENCODINGMODE::
     This sets Mercurial's behavior for handling unknown characters
     while transcoding user inputs. The default is "strict", which
     causes Mercurial to abort if it can't translate 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.
 
 HGMERGE::
     An executable to use for resolving merge conflicts. The program
     will be executed with three arguments: local file, remote file,
     ancestor file.
 
     The default program is "hgmerge", which is a shell script provided
     by Mercurial with some sensible defaults.
 
     (deprecated, use .hgrc)
 
 HGRCPATH::
     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 .hg/hgrc of
     current repository is read.
 
     For each element in path, if a directory, all entries in directory
     ending with ".rc" are added to path.  Else, element itself is
     added to path.
 
 HGUSER::
     This is the string used for the author of a commit.
 
     (deprecated, use .hgrc)
 
 EMAIL::
     If HGUSER is not set, this will be used as the author for a commit.
 
 LOGNAME::
     If neither HGUSER nor EMAIL is set, LOGNAME will be used (with
     '@hostname' appended) as the author value for a commit.
 
 EDITOR::
     This is the name of the editor used in the hgmerge script. It will be
     used for commit messages if HGEDITOR isn't set. Defaults to 'vi'.
 
 PYTHONPATH::
     This is used by Python to find imported modules and may need to be set
     appropriately if Mercurial is not installed system-wide.
     ''',
 
     "patterns|File Name Patterns": r'''
     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 a
     name with "path:".  These path names must match completely, from
     the root of the current repository.
 
     To use an extended glob, start a name with "glob:".  Globs are
     rooted at the current directory; a glob such as "*.c" will match
     files ending in ".c" in the current directory only.
 
     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 the current directory, or
                    any subdirectory
     foo/*.c        any name ending in ".c" in the directory foo
     foo/**.c       any name ending in ".c" in the directory foo, or any
                    subdirectory
 
     Regexp examples:
 
     re:.*\.c$      any name ending in ".c", anywhere in the repository
 
 ''',
 }