view mercurial/help/hgignore.txt @ 21809:e250b8300e6e

parsers: inline fields of dirstate values in C version

Previously, while unpacking the dirstate we'd create 3-4 new CPython objects
for most dirstate values:

- the state is a single character string, which is pooled by CPython
- the mode is a new object if it isn't 0 due to being in the lookup set
- the size is a new object if it is greater than 255
- the mtime is a new object if it isn't -1 due to being in the lookup set
- the tuple to contain them all

In some cases such as regular hg status, we actually look at all the objects.
In other cases like hg add, hg status for a subdirectory, or hg status with the
third-party hgwatchman enabled, we look at almost none of the objects.

This patch eliminates most object creation in these cases by defining a custom
C struct that is exposed to Python with an interface similar to a tuple. Only
when tuple elements are actually requested are the respective objects created.

The gains, where they're expected, are significant. The following tests are run
against a working copy with over 270,000 files.

parse_dirstate becomes significantly faster:

$ hg perfdirstate
before: wall 0.186437 comb 0.180000 user 0.160000 sys 0.020000 (best of 35)
after:  wall 0.093158 comb 0.100000 user 0.090000 sys 0.010000 (best of 95)

and as a result, several commands benefit:

$ time hg status  # with hgwatchman enabled
before: 0.42s user 0.14s system 99% cpu 0.563 total
after:  0.34s user 0.12s system 99% cpu 0.471 total

$ time hg add new-file
before: 0.85s user 0.18s system 99% cpu 1.033 total
after:  0.76s user 0.17s system 99% cpu 0.931 total

There is a slight regression in regular status performance, but this is fixed
in an upcoming patch.

Synopsis
========

The Mercurial system uses a file called ``.hgignore`` in the root
directory of a repository to control its behavior when it searches
for files that it is not currently tracking.

Description
===========

The working directory of a Mercurial repository will often contain
files that should not be tracked by Mercurial. These include backup
files created by editors and build products created by compilers.
These files can be ignored by listing them in a ``.hgignore`` file in
the root of the working directory. The ``.hgignore`` file must be
created manually. It is typically put under version control, so that
the settings will propagate to other repositories with push and pull.

An untracked file is ignored if its path relative to the repository
root directory, or any prefix path of that path, is matched against
any pattern in ``.hgignore``.

For example, say we have an untracked file, ``file.c``, at
``a/b/file.c`` inside our repository. Mercurial will ignore ``file.c``
if any pattern in ``.hgignore`` matches ``a/b/file.c``, ``a/b`` or ``a``.

In addition, a Mercurial configuration file can reference a set of
per-user or global ignore files. See the ``ignore`` configuration
key on the ``[ui]`` section of :hg:`help config` for details of how to
configure these files.

To control Mercurial's handling of files that it manages, many
commands support the ``-I`` and ``-X`` options; see
:hg:`help <command>` and :hg:`help patterns` for details.

Files that are already tracked are not affected by .hgignore, even
if they appear in .hgignore. An untracked file X can be explicitly
added with :hg:`add X`, even if X would be excluded by a pattern
in .hgignore.

Syntax
======

An ignore file is a plain text file consisting of a list of patterns,
with one pattern per line. Empty lines are skipped. The ``#``
character is treated as a comment character, and the ``\`` character
is treated as an escape character.

Mercurial supports several pattern syntaxes. The default syntax used
is Python/Perl-style regular expressions.

To change the syntax used, use a line of the following form::

  syntax: NAME

where ``NAME`` is one of the following:

``regexp``
  Regular expression, Python/Perl syntax.
``glob``
  Shell-style glob.

The chosen syntax stays in effect when parsing all patterns that
follow, until another syntax is selected.

Neither glob nor regexp patterns are rooted. A glob-syntax pattern of
the form ``*.c`` will match a file ending in ``.c`` in any directory,
and a regexp pattern of the form ``\.c$`` will do the same. To root a
regexp pattern, start it with ``^``.

.. note::

  Patterns specified in other than ``.hgignore`` are always rooted.
  Please see :hg:`help patterns` for details.

Example
=======

Here is an example ignore file. ::

  # use glob syntax.
  syntax: glob

  *.elc
  *.pyc
  *~

  # switch to regexp syntax.
  syntax: regexp
  ^\.pc/