diff en/filenames.tex @ 133:1e013fbe35f7

Lots of filename related content. A little more command reference work. Added a script to make sure commands are exhaustively documented.

--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/en/filenames.tex	Fri Dec 29 17:54:14 2006 -0800
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+\chapter{File names and pattern matching}
+\label{chap:names}
+
+Mercurial provides mechanisms that let you work with file names in a
+consistent and expressive way.
+
+\section{Simple file naming}
+
+Mercurial uses a unified piece of machinery ``under the hood'' to
+handle file names.  Every command behaves uniformly with respect to
+file names.  The way in which commands work with file names is as
+follows.
+
+If you explicitly name real files on the command line, Mercurial works
+with exactly those files, as you would expect.
+\interaction{filenames.files}
+
+When you provide a directory name, Mercurial will interpret this as
+``operate on every file in this directory and its subdirectories''.
+Mercurial traverses the files and subdirectories in a directory in
+alphabetical order.  When it encounters a subdirectory, it will
+traverse that subdirectory before continuing with the current
+directory.
+\interaction{filenames.dirs}
+
+\section{Running commands without any file names}
+
+Mercurial's commands that work with file names have useful default
+behaviours when you invoke them without providing any file names or
+patterns.  What kind of behaviour you should expect depends on what
+the command does.  Here are a few rules of thumb you can use to
+predict what a command is likely to do if you don't give it any names
+to work with.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item Most commands will operate on the entire working directory.
+  This is what the \hgcmd{add} command does, for example.
+\item If the command has effects that are difficult or impossible to
+  reverse, it will force you to explicitly provide at least one name
+  or pattern (see below).  This protects you from accidentally
+  deleting files by running \hgcmd{remove} with no arguments, for
+  example.
+\end{itemize}
+
+It's easy to work around these default behaviours if they don't suit
+you.  If a command normally operates on the whole working directory,
+you can invoke it on just the current directory and its subdirectories
+by giving it the name ``\dirname{.}''.
+\interaction{filenames.wdir-subdir}
+
+Along the same lines, some commands normally print file names relative
+to the root of the repository, even if you're invoking them from a
+subdirectory.  Such a command will print file names relative to your
+subdirectory if you give it explicit names.  Here, we're going to run
+\hgcmd{status} from a subdirectory, and get it to operate on the
+entire working directory while printing file names relative to our
+subdirectory, by passing it the output of the \hgcmd{root} command.
+\interaction{filenames.wdir-relname}
+
+\section{Telling you what's going on}
+
+The \hgcmd{add} example in the preceding section illustrates something
+else that's helpful about Mercurial commands.  If a command operates
+on a file that you didn't name explicitly on the command line, it will
+usually print the name of the file, so that you will not be surprised
+what's going on.
+
+The principle here is of \emph{least surprise}.  If you've exactly
+named a file on the command line, there's no point in repeating it
+back at you.  If Mercurial is acting on a file \emph{implicitly},
+because you provided no names, or a directory, or a pattern (see
+below), it's safest to tell you what it's doing.
+
+For commands that behave this way, you can silence them using the
+\hggopt{-q} option.  You can also get them to print the name of every
+file, even those you've named explicitly, using the \hggopt{-v}
+option.
+
+\section{Using patterns to identify files}
+
+In addition to working with file and directory names, Mercurial lets
+you use \emph{patterns} to identify files.  Mercurial's pattern
+handling is expressive.
+
+On Unix-like systems (Linux, MacOS, etc.), the job of matching file
+names to patterns normally falls to the shell.  On these systems, you
+must explicitly tell Mercurial that a name is a pattern.  On Windows,
+the shell does not expand patterns, so Mercurial will automatically
+identify names that are patterns, and expand them for you.
+
+To provide a pattern in place of a regular name on the command line,
+the mechanism is simple:
+\begin{codesample2}
+  syntax:patternbody
+\end{codesample2}
+That is, a pattern is identified by a short text string that says what
+kind of pattern this is, followed by a colon, followed by the actual
+pattern.
+
+Mercurial supports two kinds of pattern syntax.  The most frequently
+used is called \texttt{glob}; this is the same kind of pattern
+matching used by the Unix shell, and should be familiar to Windows
+command prompt users, too.  
+
+When Mercurial does automatic pattern matching on Windows, it uses
+\texttt{glob} syntax.  You can thus omit the ``\texttt{glob:}'' prefix
+on Windows, but it's safe to use it, too.
+
+The \texttt{re} syntax is more powerful; it lets you specify patterns
+using regular expressions, also known as regexps.
+
+By the way, in the examples that follow, notice that I'm careful to
+wrap all of my patterns in quote characters, so that they won't get
+expanded by the shell before Mercurial sees them.
+
+\subsection{Shell-style \texttt{glob} patterns}
+
+This is an overview of the kinds of patterns you can use when you're
+matching on glob patterns.
+
+The ``\texttt{*}'' character matches any string, within a single
+directory.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.star}
+
+The ``\texttt{**}'' pattern matches any string, and crosses directory
+boundaries.  It's not a standard Unix glob token, but it's accepted by
+several popular Unix shells, and is very useful.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.starstar}
+
+The ``\texttt{?}'' pattern matches any single character.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.question}
+
+The ``\texttt{[}'' character begins a \emph{character class}.  This
+matches any single character within the class.  The class ends with a
+``\texttt{]}'' character.  A class may contain multiple \emph{range}s
+of the form ``\texttt{a-f}'', which is shorthand for
+``\texttt{abcdef}''.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.range}
+If the first character after the ``\texttt{[}'' in a character class
+is a ``\texttt{!}'', it \emph{negates} the class, making it match any
+single character not in the class.
+
+A ``\texttt{\{}'' begins a group of subpatterns, where the whole group
+matches if any subpattern in the group matches.  The ``\texttt{,}''
+character separates subpatterns, and ``\texttt{\}}'' ends the group.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.group}
+
+\subsubsection{Watch out!}
+
+Don't forget that if you want to match a pattern in any directory, you
+should not be using the ``\texttt{*}'' match-any token, as this will
+only match within one directory.  Instead, use the ``\texttt{**}''
+token.  This small example illustrates the difference between the two.
+\interaction{filenames.glob.star-starstar}
+
+\subsection{Regular expression matching with \texttt{re} patterns}
+
+Mercurial accepts the same regular expression syntax as the Python
+programming language (it uses Python's regexp engine internally).
+This is based on the Perl language's regexp syntax, which is the most
+popular dialect in use (it's also used in Java, for example).
+
+I won't discuss Mercurial's regexp dialect in any detail here, as
+regexps are not often used.  Perl-style regexps are in any case
+already exhaustively documented on a multitude of web sites, and in
+many books.  Instead, I will focus here on a few things you should
+know if you find yourself needing to use regexps with Mercurial.
+
+A regexp is matched against an entire file name, relative to the root
+of the repository.  In other words, even if you're already in
+subbdirectory \dirname{foo}, if you want to match files under this
+directory, your pattern must start with ``\texttt{foo/}''.
+
+One thing to note, if you're familiar with Perl-style regexps, is that
+Mercurial's are \emph{rooted}.  That is, a regexp starts matching
+against the beginning of a string; it doesn't look for a match
+anywhere within the string it.  To match anywhere in a string, start
+your pattern with ``\texttt{.*}''.
+
+\section{Filtering files}
+
+Not only does Mercurial give you a variety of ways to specify files;
+it lets you further winnow those files using \emph{filters}.  Commands
+that work with file names accept two filtering options.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item \hggopt{-I}, or \hggopt{--include}, lets you specify a pattern
+  that file names must match in order to be processed.
+\item \hggopt{-X}, or \hggopt{--exclude}, gives you a way to
+  \emph{avoid} processing files, if they match this pattern.
+\end{itemize}
+You can provide multiple \hggopt{-I} and \hggopt{-X} options on the
+command line, and intermix them as you please.  Mercurial interprets
+the patterns you provide using glob syntax by default (but you can use
+regexps if you need to).
+
+You can read a \hggopt{-I} filter as ``process only the files that
+match this filter''.
+\interaction{filenames.filter.include}
+The \hggopt{-X} filter is best read as ``process only the files that
+don't match this pattern''.
+\interaction{filenames.filter.exclude}
+
+\section{Ignoring unwanted files and directories}
+
+XXX.
+
+\section{Case sensitivity}
+\label{sec:names:case}
+
+If you're working in a mixed development environment that contains
+both Linux (or other Unix) systems and Macs or Windows systems, you
+should keep in the back of your mind the knowledge that they treat the
+case (``N'' versus ``n'') of file names in incompatible ways.  This is
+not very likely to affect you, and it's easy to deal with if it does,
+but it could surprise you if you don't know about it.
+
+Operating systems and filesystems differ in the way they handle the
+\emph{case} of characters in file and directory names.  There are
+three common ways to handle case in names.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item Completely case insensitive.  Uppercase and lowercase versions
+  of a letter are treated as identical, both when creating a file and
+  during subsequent accesses.  This is common on older DOS-based
+  systems.
+\item Case preserving, but insensitive.  When a file or directory is
+  created, the case of its name is stored, and can be retrieved and
+  displayed by the operating system.  When an existing file is being
+  looked up, its case is ignored.  This is the standard arrangement on
+  Windows and MacOS.  The names \filename{foo} and \filename{FoO}
+  identify the same file.  This treatment of uppercase and lowercase
+  letters as interchangeable is also referred to as \emph{case
+    folding}.
+\item Case sensitive.  The case of a name is significant at all times.
+  The names \filename{foo} and {FoO} identify different files.  This
+  is the way Linux and Unix systems normally work.
+\end{itemize}
+
+On Unix-like systems, it is possible to have any or all of the above
+ways of handling case in action at once.  For example, if you use a
+USB thumb drive formatted with a FAT32 filesystem on a Linux system,
+Linux will handle names on that filesystem in a case preserving, but
+insensitive, way.
+
+\subsection{Safe, portable repository storage}
+
+Mercurial's repository storage mechanism is \emph{case safe}.  It
+translates file names so that they can be safely stored on both case
+sensitive and case insensitive filesystems.  This means that you can
+use normal file copying tools to transfer a Mercurial repository onto,
+for example, a USB thumb drive, and safely move that drive and
+repository back and forth between a Mac, a PC running Windows, and a
+Linux box.
+
+\subsection{Detecting case conflicts}
+
+When operating in the working directory, Mercurial honours the naming
+policy of the filesystem where the working directory is located.  If
+the filesystem is case preserving, but insensitive, Mercurial will
+treat names that differ only in case as the same.
+
+An important aspect of this approach is that it is possible to commit
+a changeset on a case sensitive (typically Linux or Unix) filesystem
+that will cause trouble for users on case insensitive (usually Windows
+and MacOS) users.  If a Linux user commits changes to two files, one
+named \filename{myfile.c} and the other named \filename{MyFile.C},
+they will be stored correctly in the repository.  And in the working
+directories of other Linux users, they will be correctly represented
+as separate files.
+
+If a Windows or Mac user pulls this change, they will not initially
+have a problem, because Mercurial's repository storage mechanism is
+case safe.  However, once they try to \hgcmd{update} the working
+directory to that changeset, or \hgcmd{merge} with that changeset,
+Mercurial will spot the conflict between the two file names that the
+filesystem would treat as the same, and forbid the update or merge
+from occurring.
+
+\subsection{Fixing a case conflict}
+
+If you are using Windows or a Mac in a mixed environment where some of
+your collaborators are using Linux or Unix, and Mercurial reports a
+case folding conflict when you try to \hgcmd{update} or \hgcmd{merge},
+the procedure to fix the problem is simple.
+
+Just find a nearby Linux or Unix box, clone the problem repository
+onto it, and use Mercurial's \hgcmd{rename} command to change the
+names of any offending files or directories so that they will no
+longer cause case folding conflicts.  Commit this change, \hgcmd{pull}
+or \hgcmd{push} it across to your Windows or MacOS system, and
+\hgcmd{update} to the revision with the non-conflicting names.
+
+The changeset with case-conflicting names will remain in your
+project's history, and you still won't be able to \hgcmd{update} your
+working directory to that changeset on a Windows or MacOS system, but
+you can continue development unimpeded.
+
+\begin{note}
+  Prior to version~0.9.3, Mercurial did not use a case safe repository
+  storage mechanism, and did not detect case folding conflicts.  If
+  you are using an older version of Mercurial on Windows or MacOS, I
+  strongly recommend that you upgrade.
+\end{note}
+
+%%% Local Variables: 
+%%% mode: latex
+%%% TeX-master: "00book"
+%%% End: