Option --decode for hg cat to apply decode filters.
(Does not trigger expansion of keyword arguments when using keyword
extension, though that might be desirable as well.)
#!/bin/sh
hg init
cat > .hg/hgrc <<EOF
[encode]
*.gz = gunzip
[decode]
*.gz = gzip
EOF
echo "this is a test" | gzip > a.gz
hg add a.gz
hg ci -m "test" -d "1000000 0"
echo %% no changes
hg status
touch a.gz
echo %% no changes
hg status
echo %% uncompressed contents in repo
hg debugdata .hg/store/data/a.gz.d 0
echo %% uncompress our working dir copy
gunzip < a.gz
rm a.gz
hg co
echo %% uncompress our new working dir copy
gunzip < a.gz
echo %% check hg cat operation
hg cat a.gz
hg cat -d a.gz | gunzip
mkdir subdir
cd subdir
hg -R .. cat ../a.gz
hg -R .. cat -d ../a.gz | gunzip