view mercurial/help/multirevs.txt @ 26375:3686fa2b8eee

windows: insert file positioning call between reads and writes

fopen() and fdopen() have a unique-to-Windows requirement that
transitions between read and write operations in files opened
in modes r+, w+, and a+ perform a file positioning call
(fsetpos, fseek, or rewind) in between. While the MSDN docs don't
say what will happen if this is not done, observations reveal
that Python raises an IOError with errno 0. Furthermore, I
/think/ this behavior isn't deterministic. But I can reproduce
it reliably with subsequent patches applied that open revlogs
in a+ mode and perform both reads and writes.

This patch introduces a proxy class for file handles opened
in r+, w+, and a+ mode on Windows. The class intercepts calls
and audits whether a file positioning function has been called
between read and write operations. If not, a dummy, no-op seek
to the current file position is performed. This appears to be
sufficient to "trick" Windows into allowing transitions between
read and writes without raising errors.

When Mercurial accepts more than one revision, they may be specified
individually, or provided as a topologically continuous range,
separated by the ":" character.

The syntax of range notation is [BEGIN]:[END], where BEGIN and END are
revision identifiers. Both BEGIN and END are optional. If BEGIN is not
specified, it defaults to revision number 0. If END is not specified,
it defaults to the tip. The range ":" thus means "all revisions".

If BEGIN is greater than END, revisions are treated in reverse order.

A range acts as a closed interval. This means that a range of 3:5
gives 3, 4 and 5. Similarly, a range of 9:6 gives 9, 8, 7, and 6.