view mercurial/help/flags.txt @ 35438:0ebd94ac56d1

outgoing: respect ":pushurl" paths (issue5365)

Make 'hg outgoing' respect "paths.default:pushurl" in addition to
"paths.default-push".

'hg outgoing' has always meant "what will happen if I run 'hg push'?" and it's
still documented that way:

    Show changesets not found in the specified destination repository or the
    default push location. These are the changesets that would be pushed if a
    push was requested.

If the user uses the now-deprecated "paths.default-push" path, it continues to
work that way. However, as described at
https://bz.mercurial-scm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5365, it doesn't behave the same
with "paths.default:pushurl".

Why does it matter? Similar to the bugzilla reporter, I have a read-only mirror
of a non-Mercurial repository:

  upstream -> imported mirror -> user clone
         ^-----------------------/

Users push directly to upstream, and that content is then imported into the
mirror. However, those repositories are not the same; it's possible that the
mirroring has either broken completely, or an import process is running and not
yet complete. In those cases, 'hg outgoing' will list changesets that have
already been pushed.

Mozilla's desired behavior described in bug 5365 can be accomplished through
other means (e.g. 'hg outgoing default'), preserving the consistency and
meaning of 'hg outgoing'.

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