annotate en/hook.tex @ 34:c0979ed1eabd

Get started on hook chapter.

\chapter{Handling repository events with hooks}
\label{chap:hook}

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.

The name Mercurial uses for one of these actions is a \emph{hook}.
Hooks are called ``triggers'' in some revision control systems, but
the two names refer to the same idea.

\section{A short tutorial on using hooks}
\label{sec:hook:simple}

It is easy to write a Mercurial hook.  Let's start with a hook that
runs when you finish a \hgcmd{commit}, and simply prints the hash of
the changeset you just created.  The hook is called \hook{commit}.

\begin{figure}[ht]
  \interaction{hook.simple.init}
  \caption{A simple hook that runs when a changeset is committed}
  \label{ex:hook:init}
\end{figure}

All hooks follow the pattern in example~\ref{ex:hook:init}.  You add
an entry to the \rcsection{hooks} section of your \hgrc\.  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} in the example).

\subsection{Performing multiple actions per event}

Quite often, you will want to define more than one hook for a
particular kind of event, as shown in example~\ref{ex:hook:ext}.
Mercurial lets you do this by adding an \emph{extension} 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 ``\texttt{.}'' character), followed
by some more text of your choosing.  For example, Mercurial will run
both \texttt{commit.foo} and \texttt{commit.bar} when the
\texttt{commit} event occurs.

\begin{figure}[ht]
  \interaction{hook.simple.ext}
  \caption{Defining a second \hook{commit} hook}
  \label{ex:hook:ext}
\end{figure}

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 \texttt{commit.bar} before
\texttt{commit.foo}, and \texttt{commit} before both.

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
section~\ref{sec:hook:perm} for an example).

\subsection{Controlling whether an activity can proceed}
\label{sec:hook:perm}

In our earlier examples, we used the \hook{commit} 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.

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.  

The \hook{pretxncommit} 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 \hook{pretxncommit} hook has the ability to
decide whether the transaction can complete, or must be rolled back.

If the \hook{pretxncommit} hook exits with a status code of zero, the
transaction is allowed to complete; the commit finishes; and the
\hook{commit} hook is run.  If the \hook{pretxncommit} hook exits with
a non-zero status code, the transaction is rolled back; the metadata
representing the changeset is erased; and the \hook{commit} hook is
not run.

\begin{figure}[ht]
  \interaction{hook.simple.pretxncommit}
  \caption{Using the \hook{pretxncommit} hook to control commits}
  \label{ex:hook:pretxncommit}
\end{figure}

The hook in example~\ref{ex:hook:pretxncommit} checks that a commit
comment contains a bug ID.  If it does, the commit can complete.  If
not, the commit is rolled back.

\section{Choosing how to write a hook}
\label{sec:hook:impl}

You can write a hook either as a normal program---typically a shell
script---or as a Python function that is called within the Mercurial
process.

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.

An in-process Python hook has complete access to the Mercurial API,
and does not ``shell out'' 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.

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.

\section{Hook parameters}
\label{sec:hook:param}

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.

Whether your hook is written in Python or as a shell script, the
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
``true'') or 0 (for ``false'')


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