The output of "hg help" is changed to ensure that the column containing
descriptions of commands, extensions, and other topics is correctly alignmened.
The default width of field lists is changed from 12 to 14 to align minirst with
the rst2html tool. Shrinking the width of the left column to fit the content is
removed, to keep formatting simple and uniform.
Before, the help text said that Mercurial would assume 'yes' for all
prompts, but this is confusing since many prompts don't have any 'yes'
choice. It now more accurately describes what will happen.
New users have a tendency to mistake 'revert' as the command to use to
check out old revisions. They also occasionally mistake revert for a
generalized undo (compare rollback).
This version intentionally aims to avoid mentioning 'earlier' and thus
intentionally no longer alludes to the (secondary) -r behavior (which
in fact is not actually limited to 'earlier').
Instead, we mention checkout state, to convey that we can
restore things to the way they were when checked out.
Example
$ hg clone --jump foo bar
hg clone: option --jump not recognized
hg clone [OPTION]... SOURCE [DEST]
make a copy of an existing repository
options:
-U --noupdate the clone will include an empty working copy (only a
repository)
-u --updaterev REV revision, tag or branch to check out
-r --rev REV [+] include the specified changeset
-b --branch BRANCH [+] clone only the specified branch
--pull use pull protocol to copy metadata
--uncompressed use uncompressed transfer (fast over LAN)
-e --ssh CMD specify ssh command to use
--remotecmd CMD specify hg command to run on the remote side
--insecure do not verify server certificate (ignoring
web.cacerts config)
[+] marked option can be specified multiple times
use "hg help clone" to show the full help text
Motivation for this change
If the user already has specified the command, he probably already knows
the command to some extent. Apparently, he has a problem with the options,
so we show him just the synopsis with the short help and the details about
the options, with a hint on the last line how to get the full help text.
Why is Mercurial better with this change?
Experts who just forgot about the details of an option don't get that
much text thrown at them, while the newbies still get a hint on the last
line how to get the full help text.
This adds a " (glob)" marker that works like a simpler version of
(re): "*" is converted to ".*", and "?" is converted to ".".
Both special characters can be escaped using "\", and the backslash
itself can be escaped as well.
Other glob-style syntax, like "**", "[chars]", or "[!chars]", isn't
supported.
Consider this test:
$ hg glog --template '{rev}:{node|short} "{desc}"\n'
@ 2:20c4f79fd7ac "3"
|
| o 1:38f24201dcab "2"
|/
o 0:2a18120dc1c9 "1"
Because each line beginning with "|" can be compiled as a regular
expression (equivalent to ".*|"), they will match any output.
Similarly:
$ echo foo
The blank output line can be compiled as a regular expression and will
also match any output.
With this patch, none of the above output lines will be matched as
regular expressions. A line must end in " (re)" in order to be matched
as one.
Lines are still matched literally first, so the following will pass:
$ echo 'foo (re)'
foo (re)