help/patterns.txt

help: move help topics from mercurial/help.py to help/*.txt

The help topics are loaded on demand so we wont hit the disk unless we
really have to.

    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