status: change + back out == clean (API) After backing out a change, so the file contents is equal to a previous revision of itself, we currently report the status between the two equal revisions as modified. This is because context._buildstatus() reports any file whose new nodeid is not equal to _newnode as modified. That magic nodeid is given only to files added or modified in the working directory, so any file whose nodeid has changed between two revisions will be reported as modified. Fix by simply comparing the file contents for all cases where the nodeid changed, whether they are in the working copy or committed. Marking with (API) as it subtly changes the semantics of the method.