mercurial/help.py

# 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.

from i18n import _

helptable = (
    (["dates"], _("Date Formats"),
     _(r'''
    Some commands allow the user to specify a date:
    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:

    "<{date}" - on or before a given date
    ">{date}" - on or after a given date
    "{date} to {date}" - a date range, inclusive
    "-{days}" - within a given number of days of today
    ''')),

    (["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

    ''')),

    (['environment', 'env'], _('Environment Variables'),
     _(r'''
HG::
    Path to the 'hg' executable, automatically passed when running hooks,
    extensions or external tools. If unset or empty, an executable named
    'hg' (with com/exe/bat/cmd extension on Windows) is searched.

HGEDITOR::
    This is the name of the editor to use when committing. See 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.

    (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.

VISUAL::
    This is the name of the editor to use when committing. See EDITOR.

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'.

PYTHONPATH::
    This is used by Python to find imported modules and may need to be set
    appropriately if Mercurial is not installed system-wide.
    ''')),

    (['revs', 'revisions'], _('Specifying Single Revisions'),
     _(r'''
    Mercurial accepts several notations for identifying individual
    revisions.

    A plain integer is treated as a revision number. Negative
    integers are treated as offsets from the tip, with -1 denoting the
    tip.

    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 referred to as a short-form
    identifier. A short-form identifier is only valid if it is the
    prefix of one full-length identifier.

    Any other string is treated as a tag name, which is a symbolic
    name associated with a revision identifier. Tag names may 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.
    ''')),

    (['mrevs', 'multirevs'], _('Specifying Multiple Revisions'),
     _(r'''
    When Mercurial accepts more than one revision, they may be
    specified individually, or provided as a 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 4:2 gives 4, 3, and 2.
    ''')),

    (['gitdiffs'], _('Using git Diffs'),
     _(r'''
    In several places, Mercurial supports two separate variations on
    the unified diff format: normal diffs, as are de facto standardized
    by GNU's patch utility, and git diffs, invented for the git VCS.

    The git diff format is an addition of some information to the normal
    diff format, which allows diff to convey changes in file permissions
    as well as the creation, deletion, renaming and copying of files, as
    well as diffs for binary files (unsupported by standard diff),
    operations which are very useful to modern version control systems
    such as Mercurial, in trying to faithfully replay your changes.

    In building Mercurial, we made a choice to support the git diff
    format, but we haven't made it the default. This is because for a
    long time, the format for unified diffs we usually use has been
    defined by GNU patch, and it doesn't (yet) support git's extensions
    to the diff format. This means that, when extracting diffs from a
    Mercurial repository (through the diff command, for example), you
    must be careful about things like file copies and renames (file
    creation and deletion are mostly handled fine by the traditional
    diff format, with some rare edge cases for which the git extensions
    can be used). Mercurial's internal operations (like push and pull)
    are not affected by these differences, because they use a different,
    binary format for communicating changes.

    To use git diffs, use the --git option for relevant commands, or
    enable them in a hgrc, setting 'git = True' in the [diff] section.
    ''')),
)