view mercurial/help/dates.txt @ 11322:3d6915f5a2bb

improve --branch processing (and differentiate from # syntax)

Previously #foo and --branch foo were handled identically.
The behavior of #foo hasn't changed, but --branch now works like this:

1) If branchmap is not supported on the remote, the operation fails.
2) If branch is '.', substitute with branch of the working dir parent.
3) If branch exists remotely, its heads are expanded.
4) Otherwise, the operation fails.

Tests have been added for the new cases.

Some commands allow the user to specify a date, e.g.:

- backout, commit, import, tag: Specify the commit date.
- log, revert, update: Select revision(s) by date.

Many date formats are valid. Here are some examples:

- ``Wed Dec 6 13:18:29 2006`` (local timezone assumed)
- ``Dec 6 13:18 -0600`` (year assumed, time offset provided)
- ``Dec 6 13:18 UTC`` (UTC and GMT are aliases for +0000)
- ``Dec 6`` (midnight)
- ``13:18`` (today assumed)
- ``3:39`` (3:39AM assumed)
- ``3:39pm`` (15:39)
- ``2006-12-06 13:18:29`` (ISO 8601 format)
- ``2006-12-6 13:18``
- ``2006-12-6``
- ``12-6``
- ``12/6``
- ``12/6/6`` (Dec 6 2006)

Lastly, there is Mercurial's internal format:

- ``1165432709 0`` (Wed Dec 6 13:18:29 2006 UTC)

This is the internal representation format for dates. unixtime is the
number of seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 00:00 UTC). offset is
the offset of the local timezone, in seconds west of UTC (negative if
the timezone is east of UTC).

The log command also accepts date ranges:

- ``<{datetime}`` - at or before a given date/time
- ``>{datetime}`` - on or after a given date/time
- ``{datetime} to {datetime}`` - a date range, inclusive
- ``-{days}`` - within a given number of days of today