mercurial/help/pager.txt

fncache: avoid loading the filename cache when not actually modifying it

With time, fncache can become very large. The mozilla-central repo for example,
has a 31M and growing fncache file. Loading this file takes time (280ms for the
mozilla-central repository).

In many scenarios, we don't need to load fncache at all. For example, when
committing changes to existing files, or pushing such commits to another clone.
This patch detects when a name is added via store.vfs(), and only loads the
cache if a) the data metadata file doesn't already exist, or b) when opening
for appending, the data or metadata file exists but has size  (a transaction
rollback leaves behind such files).

Benchmarks (run on Macos 10.13 on a 2017-model Macbook Pro with Core i7 2.9GHz
and flash drive), each test without and with patch run 5 times:

* committing to an existing file, against the mozilla-central repository.
  Baseline real time average 2.3736, with patch 1.9884.

* unbundling a large changeset consisting *only* of existing-file modifications
  (159 revisions, 1050 modifications, mozilla-central
  4a250a0e4f29:beea9ac7d823), into a clone limited to the ancestor revision of
  that revset). Baseline real time average 1.5048, with patch 1.3108.

Some Mercurial commands can produce a lot of output, and Mercurial will
attempt to use a pager to make those commands more pleasant.

To set the pager that should be used, set the application variable::

  [pager]
  pager = less -FRX

If no pager is set in the user or repository configuration, Mercurial uses the
environment variable $PAGER. If $PAGER is not set, pager.pager from the default
or system configuration is used. If none of these are set, a default pager will
be used, typically `less` on Unix and `more` on Windows.

.. container:: windows

  On Windows, `more` is not color aware, so using it effectively disables color.
  MSYS and Cygwin shells provide `less` as a pager, which can be configured to
  support ANSI color codes.  See :hg:`help config.color.pagermode` to configure
  the color mode when invoking a pager.

You can disable the pager for certain commands by adding them to the
pager.ignore list::

  [pager]
  ignore = version, help, update

To ignore global commands like :hg:`version` or :hg:`help`, you have
to specify them in your user configuration file.

To control whether the pager is used at all for an individual command,
you can use --pager=<value>:

  - use as needed: `auto`.
  - require the pager: `yes` or `on`.
  - suppress the pager: `no` or `off` (any unrecognized value
    will also work).

To globally turn off all attempts to use a pager, set::

  [ui]
  paginate = never

which will prevent the pager from running.