mercurial/help/revsets.txt

flags: allow specifying --no-boolean-flag on the command line (BC)

This makes it much easier to enable some anti-foot-shooting features
(like update --check) by default, because now all boolean flags can be
explicitly disabled on the command line without having to use HGPLAIN
or similar. Flags which don't deserve this treatment can be removed
from consideration by adding them to the nevernegate set in fancyopts.

This doesn't make it any easier to identify when a flag is set: opts
still always gets filled in, either with the user-specified flag value
or with the default from the flags list in the command
table. Improving that would probably clean things up a bit, but for
now if you want a boolean flag and care if it was explicitly false or
default false (or true, but nobody uses that functionality because
before now it was nonsense) you need to use None as your default
rather than True or False.

This doesn't (yet) update help output, because I'm not quite sure how
to do that cleanly.

Mercurial supports a functional language for selecting a set of
revisions.

The language supports a number of predicates which are joined by infix
operators. Parenthesis can be used for grouping.

Identifiers such as branch names may need quoting with single or
double quotes if they contain characters like ``-`` or if they match
one of the predefined predicates.

Special characters can be used in quoted identifiers by escaping them,
e.g., ``\n`` is interpreted as a newline. To prevent them from being
interpreted, strings can be prefixed with ``r``, e.g. ``r'...'``.

There is a single prefix operator:

``not x``
  Changesets not in x. Short form is ``! x``.

These are the supported infix operators:

``x::y``
  A DAG range, meaning all changesets that are descendants of x and
  ancestors of y, including x and y themselves. If the first endpoint
  is left out, this is equivalent to ``ancestors(y)``, if the second
  is left out it is equivalent to ``descendants(x)``.

  An alternative syntax is ``x..y``.

``x:y``
  All changesets with revision numbers between x and y, both
  inclusive. Either endpoint can be left out, they default to 0 and
  tip.

``x and y``
  The intersection of changesets in x and y. Short form is ``x & y``.

``x or y``
  The union of changesets in x and y. There are two alternative short
  forms: ``x | y`` and ``x + y``.

``x - y``
  Changesets in x but not in y.

``x % y``
  Changesets that are ancestors of x but not ancestors of y (i.e. ::x - ::y).
  This is shorthand notation for ``only(x, y)`` (see below). The second
  argument is optional and, if left out, is equivalent to ``only(x)``.

``x^n``
  The nth parent of x, n == 0, 1, or 2.
  For n == 0, x; for n == 1, the first parent of each changeset in x;
  for n == 2, the second parent of changeset in x.

``x~n``
  The nth first ancestor of x; ``x~0`` is x; ``x~3`` is ``x^^^``.

There is a single postfix operator:

``x^``
  Equivalent to ``x^1``, the first parent of each changeset in x.


The following predicates are supported:

.. predicatesmarker

New predicates (known as "aliases") can be defined, using any combination of
existing predicates or other aliases. An alias definition looks like::

  <alias> = <definition>

in the ``revsetalias`` section of a Mercurial configuration file. Arguments
of the form `a1`, `a2`, etc. are substituted from the alias into the
definition.

For example,

::

  [revsetalias]
  h = heads()
  d(s) = sort(s, date)
  rs(s, k) = reverse(sort(s, k))

defines three aliases, ``h``, ``d``, and ``rs``. ``rs(0:tip, author)`` is
exactly equivalent to ``reverse(sort(0:tip, author))``.

An infix operator ``##`` can concatenate strings and identifiers into
one string. For example::

  [revsetalias]
  issue(a1) = grep(r'\bissue[ :]?' ## a1 ## r'\b|\bbug\(' ## a1 ## r'\)')

``issue(1234)`` is equivalent to ``grep(r'\bissue[ :]?1234\b|\bbug\(1234\)')``
in this case. This matches against all of "issue 1234", "issue:1234",
"issue1234" and "bug(1234)".

All other prefix, infix and postfix operators have lower priority than
``##``. For example, ``a1 ## a2~2`` is equivalent to ``(a1 ## a2)~2``.

Command line equivalents for :hg:`log`::

  -f    ->  ::.
  -d x  ->  date(x)
  -k x  ->  keyword(x)
  -m    ->  merge()
  -u x  ->  user(x)
  -b x  ->  branch(x)
  -P x  ->  !::x
  -l x  ->  limit(expr, x)

Some sample queries:

- Changesets on the default branch::

    hg log -r "branch(default)"

- Changesets on the default branch since tag 1.5 (excluding merges)::

    hg log -r "branch(default) and 1.5:: and not merge()"

- Open branch heads::

    hg log -r "head() and not closed()"

- Changesets between tags 1.3 and 1.5 mentioning "bug" that affect
  ``hgext/*``::

    hg log -r "1.3::1.5 and keyword(bug) and file('hgext/*')"

- Changesets committed in May 2008, sorted by user::

    hg log -r "sort(date('May 2008'), user)"

- Changesets mentioning "bug" or "issue" that are not in a tagged
  release::

    hg log -r "(keyword(bug) or keyword(issue)) and not ancestors(tag())"