annotate en/ch09-hook.xml @ 771:b338f5490029

Americanize spellings :-(

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<chapter id="chap:hook">
  <?dbhtml filename="handling-repository-events-with-hooks.html"?>
  <title>Handling repository events with hooks</title>

  <para id="x_1e6">Mercurial offers a powerful mechanism to let you perform
    automated actions in response to events that occur in a
    repository.  In some cases, you can even control Mercurial's
    response to those events.</para>

  <para id="x_1e7">The name Mercurial uses for one of these actions is a
    <emphasis>hook</emphasis>. Hooks are called
    <quote>triggers</quote> in some revision control systems, but the
    two names refer to the same idea.</para>

  <sect1>
    <title>An overview of hooks in Mercurial</title>

    <para id="x_1e8">Here is a brief list of the hooks that Mercurial
      supports. We will revisit each of these hooks in more detail
      later, in <xref linkend="sec:hook:ref"/>.</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem><para id="x_1e9"><literal role="hook">changegroup</literal>: This
	  is run after a group of changesets has been brought into the
	  repository from elsewhere.</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1ea"><literal role="hook">commit</literal>: This is
	  run after a new changeset has been created in the local
	  repository.</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1eb"><literal role="hook">incoming</literal>: This is
	  run once for each new changeset that is brought into the
	  repository from elsewhere.  Notice the difference from
	  <literal role="hook">changegroup</literal>, which is run
	  once per <emphasis>group</emphasis> of changesets brought
	  in.</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1ec"><literal role="hook">outgoing</literal>: This is
	  run after a group of changesets has been transmitted from
	  this repository.</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1ed"><literal role="hook">prechangegroup</literal>:
	  This is run before starting to bring a group of changesets
	  into the repository.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1ee"><literal role="hook">precommit</literal>:
	  Controlling. This is run before starting a commit.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1ef"><literal role="hook">preoutgoing</literal>:
	  Controlling. This is run before starting to transmit a group
	  of changesets from this repository.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f0"><literal role="hook">pretag</literal>:
	  Controlling. This is run before creating a tag.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f1"><literal
	    role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal>: Controlling. This
	  is run after a group of changesets has been brought into the
	  local repository from another, but before the transaction
	  completes that will make the changes permanent in the
	  repository.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f2"><literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal>:
	  Controlling. This is run after a new changeset has been
	  created in the local repository, but before the transaction
	  completes that will make it permanent.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f3"><literal role="hook">preupdate</literal>:
	  Controlling. This is run before starting an update or merge
	  of the working directory.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f4"><literal role="hook">tag</literal>: This is run
	  after a tag is created.
	</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem><para id="x_1f5"><literal role="hook">update</literal>: This is
	  run after an update or merge of the working directory has
	  finished.
	</para>
      </listitem></itemizedlist>
    <para id="x_1f6">Each of the hooks whose description begins with the word
      <quote>Controlling</quote> has the ability to determine whether
      an activity can proceed.  If the hook succeeds, the activity may
      proceed; if it fails, the activity is either not permitted or
      undone, depending on the hook.
    </para>

  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Hooks and security</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>Hooks are run with your privileges</title>

      <para id="x_1f7">When you run a Mercurial command in a repository, and the
	command causes a hook to run, that hook runs on
	<emphasis>your</emphasis> system, under
	<emphasis>your</emphasis> user account, with
	<emphasis>your</emphasis> privilege level.  Since hooks are
	arbitrary pieces of executable code, you should treat them
	with an appropriate level of suspicion.  Do not install a hook
	unless you are confident that you know who created it and what
	it does.
      </para>

      <para id="x_1f8">In some cases, you may be exposed to hooks that you did
	not install yourself.  If you work with Mercurial on an
	unfamiliar system, Mercurial will run hooks defined in that
	system's global <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>
	file.
      </para>

      <para id="x_1f9">If you are working with a repository owned by another
	user, Mercurial can run hooks defined in that user's
	repository, but it will still run them as <quote>you</quote>.
	For example, if you <command role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command>
	from that repository, and its <filename
	  role="special">.hg/hgrc</filename> defines a local <literal
	  role="hook">outgoing</literal> hook, that hook will run
	under your user account, even though you don't own that
	repository.
      </para>

      <note>
	<para id="x_1fa">  This only applies if you are pulling from a repository
	  on a local or network filesystem.  If you're pulling over
	  http or ssh, any <literal role="hook">outgoing</literal>
	  hook will run under whatever account is executing the server
	  process, on the server.
	</para>
      </note>

      <para id="x_1fb">XXX To see what hooks are defined in a repository, use the
	<command role="hg-cmd">hg config hooks</command> command.  If
	you are working in one repository, but talking to another that
	you do not own (e.g. using <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  pull</command> or <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  incoming</command>), remember that it is the other
	repository's hooks you should be checking, not your own.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Hooks do not propagate</title>

      <para id="x_1fc">In Mercurial, hooks are not revision controlled, and do
	not propagate when you clone, or pull from, a repository.  The
	reason for this is simple: a hook is a completely arbitrary
	piece of executable code.  It runs under your user identity,
	with your privilege level, on your machine.
      </para>

      <para id="x_1fd">It would be extremely reckless for any distributed
	revision control system to implement revision-controlled
	hooks, as this would offer an easily exploitable way to
	subvert the accounts of users of the revision control system.
      </para>

      <para id="x_1fe">Since Mercurial does not propagate hooks, if you are
	collaborating with other people on a common project, you
	should not assume that they are using the same Mercurial hooks
	as you are, or that theirs are correctly configured.  You
	should document the hooks you expect people to use.
      </para>

      <para id="x_1ff">In a corporate intranet, this is somewhat easier to
	control, as you can for example provide a
	<quote>standard</quote> installation of Mercurial on an NFS
	filesystem, and use a site-wide <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file to define hooks that all users will
	see.  However, this too has its limits; see below.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Hooks can be overridden</title>

      <para id="x_200">Mercurial allows you to override a hook definition by
	redefining the hook.  You can disable it by setting its value
	to the empty string, or change its behavior as you wish.
      </para>

      <para id="x_201">If you deploy a system- or site-wide <filename
	  role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file that defines some
	hooks, you should thus understand that your users can disable
	or override those hooks.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Ensuring that critical hooks are run</title>

      <para id="x_202">Sometimes you may want to enforce a policy that you do not
	want others to be able to work around.  For example, you may
	have a requirement that every changeset must pass a rigorous
	set of tests.  Defining this requirement via a hook in a
	site-wide <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> won't
	work for remote users on laptops, and of course local users
	can subvert it at will by overriding the hook.
      </para>

      <para id="x_203">Instead, you can set up your policies for use of Mercurial
	so that people are expected to propagate changes through a
	well-known <quote>canonical</quote> server that you have
	locked down and configured appropriately.
      </para>

      <para id="x_204">One way to do this is via a combination of social
	engineering and technology.  Set up a restricted-access
	account; users can push changes over the network to
	repositories managed by this account, but they cannot log into
	the account and run normal shell commands.  In this scenario,
	a user can commit a changeset that contains any old garbage
	they want.
      </para>

      <para id="x_205">When someone pushes a changeset to the server that
	everyone pulls from, the server will test the changeset before
	it accepts it as permanent, and reject it if it fails to pass
	the test suite.  If people only pull changes from this
	filtering server, it will serve to ensure that all changes
	that people pull have been automatically vetted.
      </para>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Care with <literal>pretxn</literal> hooks in a
      shared-access repository</title>

    <para id="x_206">If you want to use hooks to do some automated work in a
      repository that a number of people have shared access to, you
      need to be careful in how you do this.
    </para>

    <para id="x_207">Mercurial only locks a repository when it is writing to the
      repository, and only the parts of Mercurial that write to the
      repository pay attention to locks.  Write locks are necessary to
      prevent multiple simultaneous writers from scribbling on each
      other's work, corrupting the repository.
    </para>

    <para id="x_208">Because Mercurial is careful with the order in which it
      reads and writes data, it does not need to acquire a lock when
      it wants to read data from the repository.  The parts of
      Mercurial that read from the repository never pay attention to
      locks.  This lockless reading scheme greatly increases
      performance and concurrency.
    </para>

    <para id="x_209">With great performance comes a trade-off, though, one which
      has the potential to cause you trouble unless you're aware of
      it.  To describe this requires a little detail about how
      Mercurial adds changesets to a repository and reads those
      changes.
    </para>

    <para id="x_20a">When Mercurial <emphasis>writes</emphasis> metadata, it
      writes it straight into the destination file.  It writes file
      data first, then manifest data (which contains pointers to the
      new file data), then changelog data (which contains pointers to
      the new manifest data).  Before the first write to each file, it
      stores a record of where the end of the file was in its
      transaction log.  If the transaction must be rolled back,
      Mercurial simply truncates each file back to the size it was
      before the transaction began.
    </para>

    <para id="x_20b">When Mercurial <emphasis>reads</emphasis> metadata, it reads
      the changelog first, then everything else.  Since a reader will
      only access parts of the manifest or file metadata that it can
      see in the changelog, it can never see partially written data.
    </para>

    <para id="x_20c">Some controlling hooks (<literal
	role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> and <literal
	role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal>) run when a
      transaction is almost complete. All of the metadata has been
      written, but Mercurial can still roll the transaction back and
      cause the newly-written data to disappear.
    </para>

    <para id="x_20d">If one of these hooks runs for long, it opens a window of
      time during which a reader can see the metadata for changesets
      that are not yet permanent, and should not be thought of as
      <quote>really there</quote>.  The longer the hook runs, the
      longer that window is open.
    </para>

    <sect2>
      <title>The problem illustrated</title>

      <para id="x_20e">In principle, a good use for the <literal
	  role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> hook would be to
	automatically build and test incoming changes before they are
	accepted into a central repository.  This could let you
	guarantee that nobody can push changes to this repository that
	<quote>break the build</quote>. But if a client can pull
	changes while they're being tested, the usefulness of the test
	is zero; an unsuspecting someone can pull untested changes,
	potentially breaking their build.
      </para>

      <para id="x_20f">The safest technological answer to this challenge is to
	set up such a <quote>gatekeeper</quote> repository as
	<emphasis>unidirectional</emphasis>.  Let it take changes
	pushed in from the outside, but do not allow anyone to pull
	changes from it (use the <literal
	  role="hook">preoutgoing</literal> hook to lock it down).
	Configure a <literal role="hook">changegroup</literal> hook so
	that if a build or test succeeds, the hook will push the new
	changes out to another repository that people
	<emphasis>can</emphasis> pull from.
      </para>

      <para id="x_210">In practice, putting a centralised bottleneck like this in
	place is not often a good idea, and transaction visibility has
	nothing to do with the problem.  As the size of a
	project&emdash;and the time it takes to build and
	test&emdash;grows, you rapidly run into a wall with this
	<quote>try before you buy</quote> approach, where you have
	more changesets to test than time in which to deal with them.
	The inevitable result is frustration on the part of all
	involved.
      </para>

      <para id="x_211">An approach that scales better is to get people to build
	and test before they push, then run automated builds and tests
	centrally <emphasis>after</emphasis> a push, to be sure all is
	well.  The advantage of this approach is that it does not
	impose a limit on the rate at which the repository can accept
	changes.
      </para>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1 id="sec:hook:simple">
    <title>A short tutorial on using hooks</title>

    <para id="x_212">It is easy to write a Mercurial hook.  Let's start with a
      hook that runs when you finish a <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	commit</command>, and simply prints the hash of the changeset
      you just created.  The hook is called <literal
	role="hook">commit</literal>.
    </para>

    <para id="x_213">All hooks follow the pattern in this example.</para>

&interaction.hook.simple.init;

    <para id="x_214">You add an entry to the <literal
	role="rc-hooks">hooks</literal> section of your <filename
	role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>.  On the left is the name of
      the event to trigger on; on the right is the action to take.  As
      you can see, you can run an arbitrary shell command in a hook.
      Mercurial passes extra information to the hook using environment
      variables (look for <envar>HG_NODE</envar> in the example).
    </para>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing multiple actions per event</title>

      <para id="x_215">Quite often, you will want to define more than one hook
	for a particular kind of event, as shown below.</para>

&interaction.hook.simple.ext;

      <para id="x_216">Mercurial lets you do this by adding an
	<emphasis>extension</emphasis> to the end of a hook's name.
	You extend a hook's name by giving the name of the hook,
	followed by a full stop (the
	<quote><literal>.</literal></quote> character), followed by
	some more text of your choosing.  For example, Mercurial will
	run both <literal>commit.foo</literal> and
	<literal>commit.bar</literal> when the
	<literal>commit</literal> event occurs.
      </para>

      <para id="x_217">To give a well-defined order of execution when there are
	multiple hooks defined for an event, Mercurial sorts hooks by
	extension, and executes the hook commands in this sorted
	order.  In the above example, it will execute
	<literal>commit.bar</literal> before
	<literal>commit.foo</literal>, and <literal>commit</literal>
	before both.
      </para>

      <para id="x_218">It is a good idea to use a somewhat descriptive
	extension when you define a new hook.  This will help you to
	remember what the hook was for.  If the hook fails, you'll get
	an error message that contains the hook name and extension, so
	using a descriptive extension could give you an immediate hint
	as to why the hook failed (see <xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:perm"/> for an example).
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:perm">
      <title>Controlling whether an activity can proceed</title>

      <para id="x_219">In our earlier examples, we used the <literal
	  role="hook">commit</literal> hook, which is run after a
	commit has completed.  This is one of several Mercurial hooks
	that run after an activity finishes.  Such hooks have no way
	of influencing the activity itself.
      </para>

      <para id="x_21a">Mercurial defines a number of events that occur before an
	activity starts; or after it starts, but before it finishes.
	Hooks that trigger on these events have the added ability to
	choose whether the activity can continue, or will abort.
      </para>

      <para id="x_21b">The <literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook runs
	after a commit has all but completed.  In other words, the
	metadata representing the changeset has been written out to
	disk, but the transaction has not yet been allowed to
	complete.  The <literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal>
	hook has the ability to decide whether the transaction can
	complete, or must be rolled back.
      </para>

      <para id="x_21c">If the <literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook
	exits with a status code of zero, the transaction is allowed
	to complete; the commit finishes; and the <literal
	  role="hook">commit</literal> hook is run.  If the <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook exits with a
	non-zero status code, the transaction is rolled back; the
	metadata representing the changeset is erased; and the
	<literal role="hook">commit</literal> hook is not run.
      </para>

&interaction.hook.simple.pretxncommit;

      <para id="x_21d">The hook in the example above checks that a commit comment
	contains a bug ID.  If it does, the commit can complete.  If
	not, the commit is rolled back.
      </para>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Writing your own hooks</title>

    <para id="x_21e">When you are writing a hook, you might find it useful to run
      Mercurial either with the <option
	role="hg-opt-global">-v</option> option, or the <envar
	role="rc-item-ui">verbose</envar> config item set to
      <quote>true</quote>.  When you do so, Mercurial will print a
      message before it calls each hook.
    </para>

    <sect2 id="sec:hook:lang">
      <title>Choosing how your hook should run</title>

      <para id="x_21f">You can write a hook either as a normal
	program&emdash;typically a shell script&emdash;or as a Python
	function that is executed within the Mercurial process.
      </para>

      <para id="x_220">Writing a hook as an external program has the advantage
	that it requires no knowledge of Mercurial's internals.  You
	can call normal Mercurial commands to get any added
	information you need.  The trade-off is that external hooks
	are slower than in-process hooks.
      </para>

      <para id="x_221">An in-process Python hook has complete access to the
	Mercurial API, and does not <quote>shell out</quote> to
	another process, so it is inherently faster than an external
	hook.  It is also easier to obtain much of the information
	that a hook requires by using the Mercurial API than by
	running Mercurial commands.
      </para>

      <para id="x_222">If you are comfortable with Python, or require high
	performance, writing your hooks in Python may be a good
	choice.  However, when you have a straightforward hook to
	write and you don't need to care about performance (probably
	the majority of hooks), a shell script is perfectly fine.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:param">
      <title>Hook parameters</title>

      <para id="x_223">Mercurial calls each hook with a set of well-defined
	parameters.  In Python, a parameter is passed as a keyword
	argument to your hook function.  For an external program, a
	parameter is passed as an environment variable.
      </para>

      <para id="x_224">Whether your hook is written in Python or as a shell
	script, the hook-specific parameter names and values will be
	the same.  A boolean parameter will be represented as a
	boolean value in Python, but as the number 1 (for
	<quote>true</quote>) or 0 (for <quote>false</quote>) as an
	environment variable for an external hook.  If a hook
	parameter is named <literal>foo</literal>, the keyword
	argument for a Python hook will also be named
	<literal>foo</literal>, while the environment variable for an
	external hook will be named <literal>HG_FOO</literal>.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Hook return values and activity control</title>

      <para id="x_225">A hook that executes successfully must exit with a status
	of zero if external, or return boolean <quote>false</quote> if
	in-process.  Failure is indicated with a non-zero exit status
	from an external hook, or an in-process hook returning boolean
	<quote>true</quote>.  If an in-process hook raises an
	exception, the hook is considered to have failed.
      </para>

      <para id="x_226">For a hook that controls whether an activity can proceed,
	zero/false means <quote>allow</quote>, while
	non-zero/true/exception means <quote>deny</quote>.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Writing an external hook</title>

      <para id="x_227">When you define an external hook in your <filename
	  role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> and the hook is run, its
	value is passed to your shell, which interprets it.  This
	means that you can use normal shell constructs in the body of
	the hook.
      </para>

      <para id="x_228">An executable hook is always run with its current
	directory set to a repository's root directory.
      </para>

      <para id="x_229">Each hook parameter is passed in as an environment
	variable; the name is upper-cased, and prefixed with the
	string <quote><literal>HG_</literal></quote>.
      </para>

      <para id="x_22a">With the exception of hook parameters, Mercurial does not
	set or modify any environment variables when running a hook.
	This is useful to remember if you are writing a site-wide hook
	that may be run by a number of different users with differing
	environment variables set. In multi-user situations, you
	should not rely on environment variables being set to the
	values you have in your environment when testing the hook.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Telling Mercurial to use an in-process hook</title>

      <para id="x_22b">The <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> syntax
	for defining an in-process hook is slightly different than for
	an executable hook.  The value of the hook must start with the
	text <quote><literal>python:</literal></quote>, and continue
	with the fully-qualified name of a callable object to use as
	the hook's value.
      </para>

      <para id="x_22c">The module in which a hook lives is automatically imported
	when a hook is run.  So long as you have the module name and
	<envar>PYTHONPATH</envar> right, it should <quote>just
	  work</quote>.
      </para>

      <para id="x_22d">The following <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>
	example snippet illustrates the syntax and meaning of the
	notions we just described.
      </para>
      <programlisting>[hooks]
commit.example = python:mymodule.submodule.myhook</programlisting>
      <para id="x_22e">When Mercurial runs the <literal>commit.example</literal>
	hook, it imports <literal>mymodule.submodule</literal>, looks
	for the callable object named <literal>myhook</literal>, and
	calls it.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Writing an in-process hook</title>

      <para id="x_22f">The simplest in-process hook does nothing, but illustrates
	the basic shape of the hook API:
      </para>
      <programlisting>def myhook(ui, repo, **kwargs):
    pass</programlisting>
      <para id="x_230">The first argument to a Python hook is always a <literal
	  role="py-mod-mercurial.ui">ui</literal> object.  The second
	is a repository object; at the moment, it is always an
	instance of <literal
	  role="py-mod-mercurial.localrepo">localrepository</literal>.
	Following these two arguments are other keyword arguments.
	Which ones are passed in depends on the hook being called, but
	a hook can ignore arguments it doesn't care about by dropping
	them into a keyword argument dict, as with
	<literal>**kwargs</literal> above.
      </para>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Some hook examples</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>Writing meaningful commit messages</title>

      <para id="x_231">It's hard to imagine a useful commit message being very
	short. The simple <literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal>
	hook of the example below will prevent you from committing a
	changeset with a message that is less than ten bytes long.
      </para>

&interaction.hook.msglen.go;

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Checking for trailing whitespace</title>

      <para id="x_232">An interesting use of a commit-related hook is to help you
	to write cleaner code.  A simple example of <quote>cleaner
	  code</quote> is the dictum that a change should not add any
	new lines of text that contain <quote>trailing
	  whitespace</quote>.  Trailing whitespace is a series of
	space and tab characters at the end of a line of text.  In
	most cases, trailing whitespace is unnecessary, invisible
	noise, but it is occasionally problematic, and people often
	prefer to get rid of it.
      </para>

      <para id="x_233">You can use either the <literal
	  role="hook">precommit</literal> or <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook to tell whether you
	have a trailing whitespace problem.  If you use the <literal
	  role="hook">precommit</literal> hook, the hook will not know
	which files you are committing, so it will have to check every
	modified file in the repository for trailing white space.  If
	you want to commit a change to just the file
	<filename>foo</filename>, but the file
	<filename>bar</filename> contains trailing whitespace, doing a
	check in the <literal role="hook">precommit</literal> hook
	will prevent you from committing <filename>foo</filename> due
	to the problem with <filename>bar</filename>.  This doesn't
	seem right.
      </para>

      <para id="x_234">Should you choose the <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook, the check won't
	occur until just before the transaction for the commit
	completes.  This will allow you to check for problems only the
	exact files that are being committed.  However, if you entered
	the commit message interactively and the hook fails, the
	transaction will roll back; you'll have to re-enter the commit
	message after you fix the trailing whitespace and run <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg commit</command> again.
      </para>

&interaction.hook.ws.simple;

      <para id="x_235">In this example, we introduce a simple <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook that checks for
	trailing whitespace.  This hook is short, but not very
	helpful.  It exits with an error status if a change adds a
	line with trailing whitespace to any file, but does not print
	any information that might help us to identify the offending
	file or line.  It also has the nice property of not paying
	attention to unmodified lines; only lines that introduce new
	trailing whitespace cause problems.
      </para>

      <para id="x_236">The above version is much more complex, but also more
	useful.  It parses a unified diff to see if any lines add
	trailing whitespace, and prints the name of the file and the
	line number of each such occurrence.  Even better, if the
	change adds trailing whitespace, this hook saves the commit
	comment and prints the name of the save file before exiting
	and telling Mercurial to roll the transaction back, so you can
	use the <option role="hg-opt-commit">-l filename</option>
	option to <command role="hg-cmd">hg commit</command> to reuse
	the saved commit message once you've corrected the problem.
      </para>

&interaction.hook.ws.better;

      <para id="x_237">As a final aside, note in the example above the use of
	<command>perl</command>'s in-place editing feature to get rid
	of trailing whitespace from a file.  This is concise and
	useful enough that I will reproduce it here.
      </para>
      <programlisting>perl -pi -e 's,\s+$,,' filename</programlisting>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Bundled hooks</title>

    <para id="x_238">Mercurial ships with several bundled hooks.  You can find
      them in the <filename class="directory">hgext</filename>
      directory of a Mercurial source tree.  If you are using a
      Mercurial binary package, the hooks will be located in the
      <filename class="directory">hgext</filename> directory of
      wherever your package installer put Mercurial.
    </para>

    <sect2>
      <title><literal role="hg-ext">acl</literal>&emdash;access
	control for parts of a repository</title>

      <para id="x_239">The <literal role="hg-ext">acl</literal> extension lets
	you control which remote users are allowed to push changesets
	to a networked server.  You can protect any portion of a
	repository (including the entire repo), so that a specific
	remote user can push changes that do not affect the protected
	portion.
      </para>

      <para id="x_23a">This extension implements access control based on the
	identity of the user performing a push,
	<emphasis>not</emphasis> on who committed the changesets
	they're pushing.  It makes sense to use this hook only if you
	have a locked-down server environment that authenticates
	remote users, and you want to be sure that only specific users
	are allowed to push changes to that server.
      </para>

      <sect3>
	<title>Configuring the <literal role="hook">acl</literal>
	  hook</title>

	<para id="x_23b">In order to manage incoming changesets, the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">acl</literal> hook must be used as a
	  <literal role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> hook.  This
	  lets it see which files are modified by each incoming
	  changeset, and roll back a group of changesets if they
	  modify <quote>forbidden</quote> files.  Example:
	</para>
	<programlisting>[hooks]
pretxnchangegroup.acl = python:hgext.acl.hook</programlisting>

	<para id="x_23c">The <literal role="hg-ext">acl</literal> extension is
	  configured using three sections.
	</para>

	<para id="x_23d">The <literal role="rc-acl">acl</literal> section has
	  only one entry, <envar role="rc-item-acl">sources</envar>,
	  which lists the sources of incoming changesets that the hook
	  should pay attention to.  You don't normally need to
	  configure this section.
	</para>
	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_23e"><envar role="rc-item-acl">serve</envar>:
	      Control incoming changesets that are arriving from a
	      remote repository over http or ssh.  This is the default
	      value of <envar role="rc-item-acl">sources</envar>, and
	      usually the only setting you'll need for this
	      configuration item.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_23f"><envar role="rc-item-acl">pull</envar>:
	      Control incoming changesets that are arriving via a pull
	      from a local repository.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_240"><envar role="rc-item-acl">push</envar>:
	      Control incoming changesets that are arriving via a push
	      from a local repository.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_241"><envar role="rc-item-acl">bundle</envar>:
	      Control incoming changesets that are arriving from
	      another repository via a bundle.
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

	<para id="x_242">The <literal role="rc-acl.allow">acl.allow</literal>
	  section controls the users that are allowed to add
	  changesets to the repository.  If this section is not
	  present, all users that are not explicitly denied are
	  allowed.  If this section is present, all users that are not
	  explicitly allowed are denied (so an empty section means
	  that all users are denied).
	</para>

	<para id="x_243">The <literal role="rc-acl.deny">acl.deny</literal>
	  section determines which users are denied from adding
	  changesets to the repository.  If this section is not
	  present or is empty, no users are denied.
	</para>

	<para id="x_244">The syntaxes for the <literal
	    role="rc-acl.allow">acl.allow</literal> and <literal
	    role="rc-acl.deny">acl.deny</literal> sections are
	  identical.  On the left of each entry is a glob pattern that
	  matches files or directories, relative to the root of the
	  repository; on the right, a user name.
	</para>

	<para id="x_245">In the following example, the user
	  <literal>docwriter</literal> can only push changes to the
	  <filename class="directory">docs</filename> subtree of the
	  repository, while <literal>intern</literal> can push changes
	  to any file or directory except <filename
	    class="directory">source/sensitive</filename>.
	</para>
	<programlisting>[acl.allow]
docs/** = docwriter
[acl.deny]
source/sensitive/** = intern</programlisting>

      </sect3>
      <sect3>
	<title>Testing and troubleshooting</title>

	<para id="x_246">If you want to test the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">acl</literal> hook, run it with Mercurial's
	  debugging output enabled.  Since you'll probably be running
	  it on a server where it's not convenient (or sometimes
	  possible) to pass in the <option
	    role="hg-opt-global">--debug</option> option, don't forget
	  that you can enable debugging output in your <filename
	    role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>:
	</para>
	<programlisting>[ui]
debug = true</programlisting>
	<para id="x_247">With this enabled, the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">acl</literal> hook will print enough
	  information to let you figure out why it is allowing or
	  forbidding pushes from specific users.
	</para>

      </sect3>
    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title><literal
	  role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal>&emdash;integration with
	Bugzilla</title>

      <para id="x_248">The <literal role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> extension
	adds a comment to a Bugzilla bug whenever it finds a reference
	to that bug ID in a commit comment.  You can install this hook
	on a shared server, so that any time a remote user pushes
	changes to this server, the hook gets run.
      </para>

      <para id="x_249">It adds a comment to the bug that looks like this (you can
	configure the contents of the comment&emdash;see below):
      </para>
      <programlisting>Changeset aad8b264143a, made by Joe User
	&lt;[e-mail]&gt; in the frobnitz repository, refers
	to this bug. For complete details, see
	http://hg.domain.com/frobnitz?cmd=changeset;node=aad8b264143a
	Changeset description: Fix bug 10483 by guarding against some
	NULL pointers</programlisting>
      <para id="x_24a">The value of this hook is that it automates the process of
	updating a bug any time a changeset refers to it.  If you
	configure the hook properly, it makes it easy for people to
	browse straight from a Bugzilla bug to a changeset that refers
	to that bug.
      </para>

      <para id="x_24b">You can use the code in this hook as a starting point for
	some more exotic Bugzilla integration recipes.  Here are a few
	possibilities:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_24c">Require that every changeset pushed to the
	    server have a valid bug ID in its commit comment.  In this
	    case, you'd want to configure the hook as a <literal
	      role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hook.  This would
	    allow the hook to reject changes that didn't contain bug
	    IDs.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_24d">Allow incoming changesets to automatically
	    modify the <emphasis>state</emphasis> of a bug, as well as
	    simply adding a comment.  For example, the hook could
	    recognise the string <quote>fixed bug 31337</quote> as
	    indicating that it should update the state of bug 31337 to
	    <quote>requires testing</quote>.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <sect3 id="sec:hook:bugzilla:config">
	<title>Configuring the <literal role="hook">bugzilla</literal>
	  hook</title>

	<para id="x_24e">You should configure this hook in your server's
	  <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> as an <literal
	    role="hook">incoming</literal> hook, for example as
	  follows:
	</para>
	<programlisting>[hooks]
incoming.bugzilla = python:hgext.bugzilla.hook</programlisting>

	<para id="x_24f">Because of the specialised nature of this hook, and
	  because Bugzilla was not written with this kind of
	  integration in mind, configuring this hook is a somewhat
	  involved process.
	</para>

	<para id="x_250">Before you begin, you must install the MySQL bindings
	  for Python on the host(s) where you'll be running the hook.
	  If this is not available as a binary package for your
	  system, you can download it from
	  <citation>web:mysql-python</citation>.
	</para>

	<para id="x_251">Configuration information for this hook lives in the
	  <literal role="rc-bugzilla">bugzilla</literal> section of
	  your <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>.
	</para>
	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_252"><envar
		role="rc-item-bugzilla">version</envar>: The version
	      of Bugzilla installed on the server.  The database
	      schema that Bugzilla uses changes occasionally, so this
	      hook has to know exactly which schema to use. At the
	      moment, the only version supported is
	      <literal>2.16</literal>.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_253"><envar role="rc-item-bugzilla">host</envar>:
	      The hostname of the MySQL server that stores your
	      Bugzilla data.  The database must be configured to allow
	      connections from whatever host you are running the
	      <literal role="hook">bugzilla</literal> hook on.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_254"><envar role="rc-item-bugzilla">user</envar>:
	      The username with which to connect to the MySQL server.
	      The database must be configured to allow this user to
	      connect from whatever host you are running the <literal
		role="hook">bugzilla</literal> hook on.  This user
	      must be able to access and modify Bugzilla tables.  The
	      default value of this item is <literal>bugs</literal>,
	      which is the standard name of the Bugzilla user in a
	      MySQL database.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_255"><envar
		role="rc-item-bugzilla">password</envar>: The MySQL
	      password for the user you configured above.  This is
	      stored as plain text, so you should make sure that
	      unauthorised users cannot read the <filename
		role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file where you
	      store this information.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_256"><envar role="rc-item-bugzilla">db</envar>:
	      The name of the Bugzilla database on the MySQL server.
	      The default value of this item is
	      <literal>bugs</literal>, which is the standard name of
	      the MySQL database where Bugzilla stores its data.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_257"><envar
		role="rc-item-bugzilla">notify</envar>: If you want
	      Bugzilla to send out a notification email to subscribers
	      after this hook has added a comment to a bug, you will
	      need this hook to run a command whenever it updates the
	      database.  The command to run depends on where you have
	      installed Bugzilla, but it will typically look something
	      like this, if you have Bugzilla installed in <filename
		class="directory">/var/www/html/bugzilla</filename>:
	    </para>
	    <programlisting>cd /var/www/html/bugzilla &amp;&amp;
	      ./processmail %s [e-mail]</programlisting>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_258">  The Bugzilla
	      <literal>processmail</literal> program expects to be
	      given a bug ID (the hook replaces
	      <quote><literal>%s</literal></quote> with the bug ID)
	      and an email address.  It also expects to be able to
	      write to some files in the directory that it runs in.
	      If Bugzilla and this hook are not installed on the same
	      machine, you will need to find a way to run
	      <literal>processmail</literal> on the server where
	      Bugzilla is installed.
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

      </sect3>
      <sect3>
	<title>Mapping committer names to Bugzilla user names</title>

	<para id="x_259">By default, the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook tries to use the
	  email address of a changeset's committer as the Bugzilla
	  user name with which to update a bug.  If this does not suit
	  your needs, you can map committer email addresses to
	  Bugzilla user names using a <literal
	    role="rc-usermap">usermap</literal> section.
	</para>

	<para id="x_25a">Each item in the <literal
	    role="rc-usermap">usermap</literal> section contains an
	  email address on the left, and a Bugzilla user name on the
	  right.
	</para>
	<programlisting>[usermap]
[e-mail] = jane</programlisting>
	<para id="x_25b">You can either keep the <literal
	    role="rc-usermap">usermap</literal> data in a normal
	  <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>, or tell the
	  <literal role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook to read the
	  information from an external <filename>usermap</filename>
	  file.  In the latter case, you can store
	  <filename>usermap</filename> data by itself in (for example)
	  a user-modifiable repository.  This makes it possible to let
	  your users maintain their own <envar
	    role="rc-item-bugzilla">usermap</envar> entries.  The main
	  <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file might look
	  like this:
	</para>
	<programlisting># regular hgrc file refers to external usermap file
[bugzilla]
usermap = /home/hg/repos/userdata/bugzilla-usermap.conf</programlisting>
	<para id="x_25c">While the <filename>usermap</filename> file that it
	  refers to might look like this:
	</para>
	<programlisting># bugzilla-usermap.conf - inside a hg repository
[usermap] [e-mail] = steph</programlisting>

      </sect3>
      <sect3>
	<title>Configuring the text that gets added to a bug</title>

	<para id="x_25d">You can configure the text that this hook adds as a
	  comment; you specify it in the form of a Mercurial template.
	  Several <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> entries
	  (still in the <literal role="rc-bugzilla">bugzilla</literal>
	  section) control this behavior.
	</para>
	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_25e"><literal>strip</literal>: The number of
	      leading path elements to strip from a repository's path
	      name to construct a partial path for a URL. For example,
	      if the repositories on your server live under <filename
		class="directory">/home/hg/repos</filename>, and you
	      have a repository whose path is <filename
		class="directory">/home/hg/repos/app/tests</filename>,
	      then setting <literal>strip</literal> to
	      <literal>4</literal> will give a partial path of
	      <filename class="directory">app/tests</filename>.  The
	      hook will make this partial path available when
	      expanding a template, as <literal>webroot</literal>.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_25f"><literal>template</literal>: The text of the
	      template to use.  In addition to the usual
	      changeset-related variables, this template can use
	      <literal>hgweb</literal> (the value of the
	      <literal>hgweb</literal> configuration item above) and
	      <literal>webroot</literal> (the path constructed using
	      <literal>strip</literal> above).
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

	<para id="x_260">In addition, you can add a <envar
	    role="rc-item-web">baseurl</envar> item to the <literal
	    role="rc-web">web</literal> section of your <filename
	    role="special">~/.hgrc</filename>.  The <literal
	    role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook will make this
	  available when expanding a template, as the base string to
	  use when constructing a URL that will let users browse from
	  a Bugzilla comment to view a changeset.  Example:
	</para>
	<programlisting>[web]
baseurl = http://hg.domain.com/</programlisting>

	<para id="x_261">Here is an example set of <literal
	    role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook config information.
	</para>

	&ch10-bugzilla-config.lst;

      </sect3>
      <sect3>
	<title>Testing and troubleshooting</title>

	<para id="x_262">The most common problems with configuring the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook relate to running
	  Bugzilla's <filename>processmail</filename> script and
	  mapping committer names to user names.
	</para>

	<para id="x_263">Recall from <xref
	    linkend="sec:hook:bugzilla:config"/> above that the user
	  that runs the Mercurial process on the server is also the
	  one that will run the <filename>processmail</filename>
	  script.  The <filename>processmail</filename> script
	  sometimes causes Bugzilla to write to files in its
	  configuration directory, and Bugzilla's configuration files
	  are usually owned by the user that your web server runs
	  under.
	</para>

	<para id="x_264">You can cause <filename>processmail</filename> to be run
	  with the suitable user's identity using the
	  <command>sudo</command> command.  Here is an example entry
	  for a <filename>sudoers</filename> file.
	</para>
	<programlisting>hg_user = (httpd_user)
NOPASSWD: /var/www/html/bugzilla/processmail-wrapper %s</programlisting>
	<para id="x_265">This allows the <literal>hg_user</literal> user to run a
	  <filename>processmail-wrapper</filename> program under the
	  identity of <literal>httpd_user</literal>.
	</para>

	<para id="x_266">This indirection through a wrapper script is necessary,
	  because <filename>processmail</filename> expects to be run
	  with its current directory set to wherever you installed
	  Bugzilla; you can't specify that kind of constraint in a
	  <filename>sudoers</filename> file.  The contents of the
	  wrapper script are simple:
	</para>
	<programlisting>#!/bin/sh
cd `dirname $0` &amp;&amp; ./processmail "$1" [e-mail]</programlisting>
	<para id="x_267">It doesn't seem to matter what email address you pass to
	  <filename>processmail</filename>.
	</para>

	<para id="x_268">If your <literal role="rc-usermap">usermap</literal> is
	  not set up correctly, users will see an error message from
	  the <literal role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal> hook when they
	  push changes to the server.  The error message will look
	  like this:
	</para>
	<programlisting>cannot find bugzilla user id for [e-mail]</programlisting>
	<para id="x_269">What this means is that the committer's address,
	  <literal>[e-mail]</literal>, is not a valid
	  Bugzilla user name, nor does it have an entry in your
	  <literal role="rc-usermap">usermap</literal> that maps it to
	  a valid Bugzilla user name.
	</para>

      </sect3>
    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title><literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal>&emdash;send email
	notifications</title>

      <para id="x_26a">Although Mercurial's built-in web server provides RSS
	feeds of changes in every repository, many people prefer to
	receive change notifications via email.  The <literal
	  role="hg-ext">notify</literal> hook lets you send out
	notifications to a set of email addresses whenever changesets
	arrive that those subscribers are interested in.
      </para>

      <para id="x_26b">As with the <literal role="hg-ext">bugzilla</literal>
	hook, the <literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal> hook is
	template-driven, so you can customise the contents of the
	notification messages that it sends.
      </para>

      <para id="x_26c">By default, the <literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal>
	hook includes a diff of every changeset that it sends out; you
	can limit the size of the diff, or turn this feature off
	entirely.  It is useful for letting subscribers review changes
	immediately, rather than clicking to follow a URL.
      </para>

      <sect3>
	<title>Configuring the <literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal>
	  hook</title>

	<para id="x_26d">You can set up the <literal
	    role="hg-ext">notify</literal> hook to send one email
	  message per incoming changeset, or one per incoming group of
	  changesets (all those that arrived in a single pull or
	  push).
	</para>
	<programlisting>[hooks]
# send one email per group of changes
changegroup.notify = python:hgext.notify.hook
# send one email per change
incoming.notify = python:hgext.notify.hook</programlisting>

	<para id="x_26e">Configuration information for this hook lives in the
	  <literal role="rc-notify">notify</literal> section of a
	  <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file.
	</para>
	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_26f"><envar role="rc-item-notify">test</envar>:
	      By default, this hook does not send out email at all;
	      instead, it prints the message that it
	      <emphasis>would</emphasis> send.  Set this item to
	      <literal>false</literal> to allow email to be sent. The
	      reason that sending of email is turned off by default is
	      that it takes several tries to configure this extension
	      exactly as you would like, and it would be bad form to
	      spam subscribers with a number of <quote>broken</quote>
	      notifications while you debug your configuration.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_270"><envar role="rc-item-notify">config</envar>:
	      The path to a configuration file that contains
	      subscription information.  This is kept separate from
	      the main <filename role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> so
	      that you can maintain it in a repository of its own.
	      People can then clone that repository, update their
	      subscriptions, and push the changes back to your server.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_271"><envar role="rc-item-notify">strip</envar>:
	      The number of leading path separator characters to strip
	      from a repository's path, when deciding whether a
	      repository has subscribers.  For example, if the
	      repositories on your server live in <filename
		class="directory">/home/hg/repos</filename>, and
	      <literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal> is considering a
	      repository named <filename
		class="directory">/home/hg/repos/shared/test</filename>, 
	      setting <envar role="rc-item-notify">strip</envar> to
	      <literal>4</literal> will cause <literal
		role="hg-ext">notify</literal> to trim the path it
	      considers down to <filename
		class="directory">shared/test</filename>, and it will
	      match subscribers against that.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_272"><envar
		role="rc-item-notify">template</envar>: The template
	      text to use when sending messages.  This specifies both
	      the contents of the message header and its body.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_273"><envar
		role="rc-item-notify">maxdiff</envar>: The maximum
	      number of lines of diff data to append to the end of a
	      message.  If a diff is longer than this, it is
	      truncated.  By default, this is set to 300.  Set this to
	      <literal>0</literal> to omit diffs from notification
	      emails.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_274"><envar
		role="rc-item-notify">sources</envar>: A list of
	      sources of changesets to consider.  This lets you limit
	      <literal role="hg-ext">notify</literal> to only sending
	      out email about changes that remote users pushed into
	      this repository via a server, for example.  See 
	      <xref linkend="sec:hook:sources"/> for the sources you
	      can specify here.
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

	<para id="x_275">If you set the <envar role="rc-item-web">baseurl</envar>
	  item in the <literal role="rc-web">web</literal> section,
	  you can use it in a template; it will be available as
	  <literal>webroot</literal>.
	</para>

	<para id="x_276">Here is an example set of <literal
	    role="hg-ext">notify</literal> configuration information.
	</para>

	&ch10-notify-config.lst;

	<para id="x_277">This will produce a message that looks like the
	  following:
	</para>

	&ch10-notify-config-mail.lst;

      </sect3>
      <sect3>
	<title>Testing and troubleshooting</title>

	<para id="x_278">Do not forget that by default, the <literal
		role="hg-ext">notify</literal> extension <emphasis>will not
	  send any mail</emphasis> until you explicitly configure it to do so,
	  by setting <envar role="rc-item-notify">test</envar> to
	  <literal>false</literal>.  Until you do that, it simply
	  prints the message it <emphasis>would</emphasis> send.
	</para>

      </sect3>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1 id="sec:hook:ref">
    <title>Information for writers of hooks</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>In-process hook execution</title>

      <para id="x_279">An in-process hook is called with arguments of the
	following form:
      </para>
      <programlisting>def myhook(ui, repo, **kwargs): pass</programlisting>
      <para id="x_27a">The <literal>ui</literal> parameter is a <literal
	  role="py-mod-mercurial.ui">ui</literal> object. The
	<literal>repo</literal> parameter is a <literal
	  role="py-mod-mercurial.localrepo">localrepository</literal>
	object.  The names and values of the
	<literal>**kwargs</literal> parameters depend on the hook
	being invoked, with the following common features:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_27b">If a parameter is named
	    <literal>node</literal> or <literal>parentN</literal>, it
	    will contain a hexadecimal changeset ID. The empty string
	    is used to represent <quote>null changeset ID</quote>
	    instead of a string of zeroes.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_27c">If a parameter is named
	    <literal>url</literal>, it will contain the URL of a
	    remote repository, if that can be determined.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_27d">Boolean-valued parameters are represented as
	    Python <literal>bool</literal> objects.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_27e">An in-process hook is called without a change to the
	process's working directory (unlike external hooks, which are
	run in the root of the repository).  It must not change the
	process's working directory, or it will cause any calls it
	makes into the Mercurial API to fail.
      </para>

      <para id="x_27f">If a hook returns a boolean <quote>false</quote> value, it
	is considered to have succeeded.  If it returns a boolean
	<quote>true</quote> value or raises an exception, it is
	considered to have failed.  A useful way to think of the
	calling convention is <quote>tell me if you fail</quote>.
      </para>

      <para id="x_280">Note that changeset IDs are passed into Python hooks as
	hexadecimal strings, not the binary hashes that Mercurial's
	APIs normally use.  To convert a hash from hex to binary, use
	the <literal>bin</literal> function.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>External hook execution</title>

      <para id="x_281">An external hook is passed to the shell of the user
	running Mercurial. Features of that shell, such as variable
	substitution and command redirection, are available.  The hook
	is run in the root directory of the repository (unlike
	in-process hooks, which are run in the same directory that
	Mercurial was run in).
      </para>

      <para id="x_282">Hook parameters are passed to the hook as environment
	variables.  Each environment variable's name is converted in
	upper case and prefixed with the string
	<quote><literal>HG_</literal></quote>.  For example, if the
	name of a parameter is <quote><literal>node</literal></quote>,
	the name of the environment variable representing that
	parameter will be <quote><literal>HG_NODE</literal></quote>.
      </para>

      <para id="x_283">A boolean parameter is represented as the string
	<quote><literal>1</literal></quote> for <quote>true</quote>,
	<quote><literal>0</literal></quote> for <quote>false</quote>.
	If an environment variable is named <envar>HG_NODE</envar>,
	<envar>HG_PARENT1</envar> or <envar>HG_PARENT2</envar>, it
	contains a changeset ID represented as a hexadecimal string.
	The empty string is used to represent <quote>null changeset
	  ID</quote> instead of a string of zeroes.  If an environment
	variable is named <envar>HG_URL</envar>, it will contain the
	URL of a remote repository, if that can be determined.
      </para>

      <para id="x_284">If a hook exits with a status of zero, it is considered to
	have succeeded.  If it exits with a non-zero status, it is
	considered to have failed.
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2>
      <title>Finding out where changesets come from</title>

      <para id="x_285">A hook that involves the transfer of changesets between a
	local repository and another may be able to find out
	information about the <quote>far side</quote>.  Mercurial
	knows <emphasis>how</emphasis> changes are being transferred,
	and in many cases <emphasis>where</emphasis> they are being
	transferred to or from.
      </para>

      <sect3 id="sec:hook:sources">
	<title>Sources of changesets</title>

	<para id="x_286">Mercurial will tell a hook what means are, or were, used
	  to transfer changesets between repositories.  This is
	  provided by Mercurial in a Python parameter named
	  <literal>source</literal>, or an environment variable named
	  <envar>HG_SOURCE</envar>.
	</para>

	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_287"><literal>serve</literal>: Changesets are
	      transferred to or from a remote repository over http or
	      ssh.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_288"><literal>pull</literal>: Changesets are
	      being transferred via a pull from one repository into
	      another.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_289"><literal>push</literal>: Changesets are
	      being transferred via a push from one repository into
	      another.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_28a"><literal>bundle</literal>: Changesets are
	      being transferred to or from a bundle.
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

      </sect3>
      <sect3 id="sec:hook:url">
	<title>Where changes are going&emdash;remote repository
	  URLs</title>

	<para id="x_28b">When possible, Mercurial will tell a hook the location
	  of the <quote>far side</quote> of an activity that transfers
	  changeset data between repositories.  This is provided by
	  Mercurial in a Python parameter named
	  <literal>url</literal>, or an environment variable named
	  <envar>HG_URL</envar>.
	</para>

	<para id="x_28c">This information is not always known.  If a hook is
	  invoked in a repository that is being served via http or
	  ssh, Mercurial cannot tell where the remote repository is,
	  but it may know where the client is connecting from.  In
	  such cases, the URL will take one of the following forms:
	</para>
	<itemizedlist>
	  <listitem><para id="x_28d"><literal>remote:ssh:1.2.3.4</literal>&emdash;remote 
	      ssh client, at the IP address
	      <literal>1.2.3.4</literal>.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_28e"><literal>remote:http:1.2.3.4</literal>&emdash;remote 
	      http client, at the IP address
	      <literal>1.2.3.4</literal>.  If the client is using SSL,
	      this will be of the form
	      <literal>remote:https:1.2.3.4</literal>.
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	  <listitem><para id="x_28f">Empty&emdash;no information could be
	      discovered about the remote client.
	    </para>
	  </listitem></itemizedlist>

      </sect3>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  <sect1>
    <title>Hook reference</title>

    <sect2 id="sec:hook:changegroup">
      <title><literal role="hook">changegroup</literal>&emdash;after
	remote changesets added</title>

      <para id="x_290">This hook is run after a group of pre-existing changesets
	has been added to the repository, for example via a <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command> or <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  unbundle</command>.  This hook is run once per operation
	that added one or more changesets.  This is in contrast to the
	<literal role="hook">incoming</literal> hook, which is run
	once per changeset, regardless of whether the changesets
	arrive in a group.
      </para>

      <para id="x_291">Some possible uses for this hook include kicking off an
	automated build or test of the added changesets, updating a
	bug database, or notifying subscribers that a repository
	contains new changes.
      </para>

      <para id="x_292">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_293"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    changeset ID of the first changeset in the group that was
	    added.  All changesets between this and
	    <literal role="tag">tip</literal>, inclusive, were added by a single
	    <command role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command>, <command
	      role="hg-cmd">hg push</command> or <command
	      role="hg-cmd">hg unbundle</command>.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_294"><literal>source</literal>: A
	    string.  The source of these changes.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/> for details.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_295"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_296">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">incoming</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:incoming"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">prechangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:prechangegroup"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxnchangegroup"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:commit">
      <title><literal role="hook">commit</literal>&emdash;after a new
	changeset is created</title>

      <para id="x_297">This hook is run after a new changeset has been created.
      </para>

      <para id="x_298">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_299"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    changeset ID of the newly committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_29a"><literal>parent1</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the first parent of the newly
	    committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_29b"><literal>parent2</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the second parent of the newly
	    committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_29c">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">precommit</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:precommit"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxncommit"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:incoming">
      <title><literal role="hook">incoming</literal>&emdash;after one
	remote changeset is added</title>

      <para id="x_29d">This hook is run after a pre-existing changeset has been
	added to the repository, for example via a <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg push</command>.  If a group of changesets
	was added in a single operation, this hook is called once for
	each added changeset.
      </para>

      <para id="x_29e">You can use this hook for the same purposes as
	the <literal role="hook">changegroup</literal> hook (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:changegroup"/>); it's simply more
	convenient sometimes to run a hook once per group of
	changesets, while other times it's handier once per changeset.
      </para>

      <para id="x_29f">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a0"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    ID of the newly added changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a1"><literal>source</literal>: A
	    string.  The source of these changes.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/> for details.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a2"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2a3">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">changegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:changegroup"/>) <literal
	  role="hook">prechangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:prechangegroup"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxnchangegroup"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:outgoing">
      <title><literal role="hook">outgoing</literal>&emdash;after
	changesets are propagated</title>

      <para id="x_2a4">This hook is run after a group of changesets has been
	propagated out of this repository, for example by a <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg push</command> or <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  bundle</command> command.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2a5">One possible use for this hook is to notify administrators
	that changes have been pulled.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2a6">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a7"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    changeset ID of the first changeset of the group that was
	    sent.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a8"><literal>source</literal>: A string.  The
	    source of the of the operation (see <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/>).  If a remote
	    client pulled changes from this repository,
	    <literal>source</literal> will be
	    <literal>serve</literal>.  If the client that obtained
	    changes from this repository was local,
	    <literal>source</literal> will be
	    <literal>bundle</literal>, <literal>pull</literal>, or
	    <literal>push</literal>, depending on the operation the
	    client performed.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2a9"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2aa">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">preoutgoing</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:preoutgoing"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:prechangegroup">
      <title><literal
	  role="hook">prechangegroup</literal>&emdash;before starting
	to add remote changesets</title>

      <para id="x_2ab">This controlling hook is run before Mercurial begins to
	add a group of changesets from another repository.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2ac">This hook does not have any information about the
	changesets to be added, because it is run before transmission
	of those changesets is allowed to begin.  If this hook fails,
	the changesets will not be transmitted.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2ad">One use for this hook is to prevent external changes from
	being added to a repository.  For example, you could use this
	to <quote>freeze</quote> a server-hosted branch temporarily or
	permanently so that users cannot push to it, while still
	allowing a local administrator to modify the repository.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2ae">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2af"><literal>source</literal>: A string.  The
	    source of these changes.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/> for details.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2b0"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2b1">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">changegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:changegroup"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">incoming</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:incoming"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxnchangegroup"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:precommit">
      <title><literal role="hook">precommit</literal>&emdash;before
	starting to commit a changeset</title>

      <para id="x_2b2">This hook is run before Mercurial begins to commit a new
	changeset. It is run before Mercurial has any of the metadata
	for the commit, such as the files to be committed, the commit
	message, or the commit date.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2b3">One use for this hook is to disable the ability to commit
	new changesets, while still allowing incoming changesets.
	Another is to run a build or test, and only allow the commit
	to begin if the build or test succeeds.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2b4">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2b5"><literal>parent1</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the first parent of the working
	    directory.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2b6"><literal>parent2</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the second parent of the working
	    directory.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>
      <para id="x_2b7">If the commit proceeds, the parents of the working
	directory will become the parents of the new changeset.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2b8">See also: <literal role="hook">commit</literal>
	(<xref linkend="sec:hook:commit"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxncommit"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:preoutgoing">
      <title><literal role="hook">preoutgoing</literal>&emdash;before
	starting to propagate changesets</title>

      <para id="x_2b9">This hook is invoked before Mercurial knows the identities
	of the changesets to be transmitted.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2ba">One use for this hook is to prevent changes from being
	transmitted to another repository.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2bb">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2bc"><literal>source</literal>: A
	    string.  The source of the operation that is attempting to
	    obtain changes from this repository (see <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/>).  See the documentation
	    for the <literal>source</literal> parameter to the
	    <literal role="hook">outgoing</literal> hook, in
	    <xref linkend="sec:hook:outgoing"/>, for possible values
	    of this parameter.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2bd"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2be">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">outgoing</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:outgoing"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:pretag">
      <title><literal role="hook">pretag</literal>&emdash;before
	tagging a changeset</title>

      <para id="x_2bf">This controlling hook is run before a tag is created.  If
	the hook succeeds, creation of the tag proceeds.  If the hook
	fails, the tag is not created.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2c0">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2c1"><literal>local</literal>: A boolean.  Whether
	    the tag is local to this repository instance (i.e. stored
	    in <filename role="special">.hg/localtags</filename>) or
	    managed by Mercurial (stored in <filename
	      role="special">.hgtags</filename>).
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2c2"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    ID of the changeset to be tagged.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2c3"><literal>tag</literal>: A string.  The name of
	    the tag to be created.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2c4">If the tag to be created is
	revision-controlled, the <literal
	  role="hook">precommit</literal> and <literal
	  role="hook">pretxncommit</literal> hooks (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:commit"/> and <xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:pretxncommit"/>) will also be run.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2c5">See also: <literal role="hook">tag</literal>
	(<xref linkend="sec:hook:tag"/>)
      </para>
    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:pretxnchangegroup">
      <title><literal
	  role="hook">pretxnchangegroup</literal>&emdash;before
	completing addition of remote changesets</title>

      <para id="x_2c6">This controlling hook is run before a
	transaction&emdash;that manages the addition of a group of new
	changesets from outside the repository&emdash;completes.  If
	the hook succeeds, the transaction completes, and all of the
	changesets become permanent within this repository.  If the
	hook fails, the transaction is rolled back, and the data for
	the changesets is erased.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2c7">This hook can access the metadata associated with the
	almost-added changesets, but it should not do anything
	permanent with this data. It must also not modify the working
	directory.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2c8">While this hook is running, if other Mercurial processes
	access this repository, they will be able to see the
	almost-added changesets as if they are permanent.  This may
	lead to race conditions if you do not take steps to avoid
	them.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2c9">This hook can be used to automatically vet a group of
	changesets.  If the hook fails, all of the changesets are
	<quote>rejected</quote> when the transaction rolls back.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2ca">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2cb"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    changeset ID of the first changeset in the group that was
	    added.  All changesets between this and
	    <literal role="tag">tip</literal>,
	    inclusive, were added by a single <command
	      role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command>, <command
	      role="hg-cmd">hg push</command> or <command
	      role="hg-cmd">hg unbundle</command>.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2cc"><literal>source</literal>: A
	    string.  The source of these changes.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:sources"/> for details.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2cd"><literal>url</literal>: A URL.  The
	    location of the remote repository, if known.  See <xref
	      linkend="sec:hook:url"/> for more information.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2ce">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">changegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:changegroup"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">incoming</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:incoming"/>), <literal
	  role="hook">prechangegroup</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:prechangegroup"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:pretxncommit">
      <title><literal role="hook">pretxncommit</literal>&emdash;before
	completing commit of new changeset</title>

      <para id="x_2cf">This controlling hook is run before a
	transaction&emdash;that manages a new commit&emdash;completes.
	If the hook succeeds, the transaction completes and the
	changeset becomes permanent within this repository.  If the
	hook fails, the transaction is rolled back, and the commit
	data is erased.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2d0">This hook can access the metadata associated with the
	almost-new changeset, but it should not do anything permanent
	with this data.  It must also not modify the working
	directory.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2d1">While this hook is running, if other Mercurial processes
	access this repository, they will be able to see the
	almost-new changeset as if it is permanent.  This may lead to
	race conditions if you do not take steps to avoid them.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2d2">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2d3"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    changeset ID of the newly committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2d4"><literal>parent1</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the first parent of the newly
	    committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2d5"><literal>parent2</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The changeset ID of the second parent of the newly
	    committed changeset.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2d6">See also: <literal
	  role="hook">precommit</literal> (<xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:precommit"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:preupdate">
      <title><literal role="hook">preupdate</literal>&emdash;before
	updating or merging working directory</title>

      <para id="x_2d7">This controlling hook is run before an update
	or merge of the working directory begins.  It is run only if
	Mercurial's normal pre-update checks determine that the update
	or merge can proceed.  If the hook succeeds, the update or
	merge may proceed; if it fails, the update or merge does not
	start.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2d8">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2d9"><literal>parent1</literal>: A
	    changeset ID. The ID of the parent that the working
	    directory is to be updated to.  If the working directory
	    is being merged, it will not change this parent.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2da"><literal>parent2</literal>: A
	    changeset ID. Only set if the working directory is being
	    merged.  The ID of the revision that the working directory
	    is being merged with.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2db">See also: <literal role="hook">update</literal>
	(<xref linkend="sec:hook:update"/>)</para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:tag">
      <title><literal role="hook">tag</literal>&emdash;after tagging a
	changeset</title>

      <para id="x_2dc">This hook is run after a tag has been created.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2dd">Parameters to this hook:
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2de"><literal>local</literal>: A boolean.  Whether
	    the new tag is local to this repository instance (i.e.
	    stored in <filename
	      role="special">.hg/localtags</filename>) or managed by
	    Mercurial (stored in <filename
	      role="special">.hgtags</filename>).
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2df"><literal>node</literal>: A changeset ID.  The
	    ID of the changeset that was tagged.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2e0"><literal>tag</literal>: A string.  The name of
	    the tag that was created.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2e1">If the created tag is revision-controlled, the <literal
	  role="hook">commit</literal> hook (section <xref
	  linkend="sec:hook:commit"/>) is run before this hook.
      </para>

      <para id="x_2e2">See also: <literal role="hook">pretag</literal>
	(<xref linkend="sec:hook:pretag"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="sec:hook:update">
      <title><literal role="hook">update</literal>&emdash;after
	updating or merging working directory</title>

      <para id="x_2e3">This hook is run after an update or merge of the working
	directory completes.  Since a merge can fail (if the external
	<command>hgmerge</command> command fails to resolve conflicts
	in a file), this hook communicates whether the update or merge
	completed cleanly.
      </para>

      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_2e4"><literal>error</literal>: A boolean.
	    Indicates whether the update or merge completed
	    successfully.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2e5"><literal>parent1</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    The ID of the parent that the working directory was
	    updated to.  If the working directory was merged, it will
	    not have changed this parent.
	  </para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_2e6"><literal>parent2</literal>: A changeset ID.
	    Only set if the working directory was merged.  The ID of
	    the revision that the working directory was merged with.
	  </para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>

      <para id="x_2e7">See also: <literal role="hook">preupdate</literal>
	(<xref linkend="sec:hook:preupdate"/>)
      </para>

    </sect2>
  </sect1>
</chapter>

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