view mercurial/help/flags.txt @ 35935:00b9e26d727b

sshpeer: establish SSH connection before class instantiation

We want to move the handshake to before peers are created so
we can instantiate a different peer class depending on the
results of the handshake. This necessitates moving the SSH
process invocation to outside the peer class.

As part of the code move, some variables were renamed for
clarity. util.popen4() returns stdin, stdout, and stderr in
their typical file descriptor order. However, stdin and stdout
were being mapped to "pipeo" and "pipei" respectively. "o"
for "stdin" and "i" for "stdout" is a bit confusing. Although
it does make sense for "output" and "input" from the perspective
of the client. But in the context of the new function, it makes
sense to refer to these as their file descriptor names.

In addition, the last use of self._path disappeared, so we stop
setting that attribute and we can delete the redundant URL
parsing necessary to set it.

Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D2031

Most Mercurial commands accept various flags.

Flag names
==========

Flags for each command are listed in :hg:`help` for that command.
Additionally, some flags, such as --repository, are global and can be used with
any command - those are seen in :hg:`help -v`, and can be specified before or
after the command.

Every flag has at least a long name, such as --repository. Some flags may also
have a short one-letter name, such as the equivalent -R. Using the short or long
name is equivalent and has the same effect.

Flags that have a short name can also be bundled together - for instance, to
specify both --edit (short -e) and --interactive (short -i), one could use::

    hg commit -ei

If any of the bundled flags takes a value (i.e. is not a boolean), it must be
last, followed by the value::

    hg commit -im 'Message'

Flag types
==========

Mercurial command-line flags can be strings, numbers, booleans, or lists of
strings.

Specifying flag values
======================

The following syntaxes are allowed, assuming a flag 'flagname' with short name
'f'::

    --flagname=foo
    --flagname foo
    -f foo
    -ffoo

This syntax applies to all non-boolean flags (strings, numbers or lists).

Specifying boolean flags
========================

Boolean flags do not take a value parameter. To specify a boolean, use the flag
name to set it to true, or the same name prefixed with 'no-' to set it to
false::

    hg commit --interactive
    hg commit --no-interactive

Specifying list flags
=====================

List flags take multiple values. To specify them, pass the flag multiple times::

    hg files --include mercurial --include tests

Setting flag defaults
=====================

In order to set a default value for a flag in an hgrc file, it is recommended to
use aliases::

    [alias]
    commit = commit --interactive

For more information on hgrc files, see :hg:`help config`.

Overriding flags on the command line
====================================

If the same non-list flag is specified multiple times on the command line, the
latest specification is used::

    hg commit -m "Ignored value" -m "Used value"

This includes the use of aliases - e.g., if one has::

    [alias]
    committemp = commit -m "Ignored value"

then the following command will override that -m::

    hg committemp -m "Used value"

Overriding flag defaults
========================

Every flag has a default value, and you may also set your own defaults in hgrc
as described above.
Except for list flags, defaults can be overridden on the command line simply by
specifying the flag in that location.

Hidden flags
============

Some flags are not shown in a command's help by default - specifically, those
that are deemed to be experimental, deprecated or advanced. To show all flags,
add the --verbose flag for the help command::

    hg help --verbose commit