hgbook

annotate en/ch11-template.xml @ 647:d0160b0b1a9e

Merge with http://hg.serpentine.com/mercurial/book
author Dongsheng Song <dongsheng.song@gmail.com>
date Wed Mar 18 20:32:37 2009 +0800 (2009-03-18)
parents cfdb601a3c8b 8366882f67f2
children
rev   line source
bos@559 1 <!-- vim: set filetype=docbkxml shiftwidth=2 autoindent expandtab tw=77 : -->
bos@559 2
dongsheng@625 3 <chapter id="chap.template">
bos@572 4 <?dbhtml filename="customizing-the-output-of-mercurial.html"?>
bos@559 5 <title>Customising the output of Mercurial</title>
bos@559 6
bos@559 7 <para>Mercurial provides a powerful mechanism to let you control how
bos@559 8 it displays information. The mechanism is based on templates.
bos@559 9 You can use templates to generate specific output for a single
bos@559 10 command, or to customise the entire appearance of the built-in web
bos@559 11 interface.</para>
bos@559 12
dongsheng@625 13 <sect1 id="sec.style">
bos@559 14 <title>Using precanned output styles</title>
bos@559 15
bos@559 16 <para>Packaged with Mercurial are some output styles that you can
bos@559 17 use immediately. A style is simply a precanned template that
bos@559 18 someone wrote and installed somewhere that Mercurial can
bos@559 19 find.</para>
bos@559 20
bos@559 21 <para>Before we take a look at Mercurial's bundled styles, let's
bos@559 22 review its normal output.</para>
bos@559 23
bos@567 24 &interaction.template.simple.normal;
bos@559 25
bos@559 26 <para>This is somewhat informative, but it takes up a lot of
bos@559 27 space&emdash;five lines of output per changeset. The
bos@559 28 <literal>compact</literal> style reduces this to three lines,
bos@559 29 presented in a sparse manner.</para>
bos@559 30
bos@567 31 &interaction.template.simple.compact;
bos@559 32
bos@559 33 <para>The <literal>changelog</literal> style hints at the
bos@559 34 expressive power of Mercurial's templating engine. This style
bos@559 35 attempts to follow the GNU Project's changelog
bos@559 36 guidelines<citation>web:changelog</citation>.</para>
bos@559 37
bos@567 38 &interaction.template.simple.changelog;
bos@559 39
bos@559 40 <para>You will not be shocked to learn that Mercurial's default
bos@559 41 output style is named <literal>default</literal>.</para>
bos@559 42
bos@559 43 <sect2>
bos@559 44 <title>Setting a default style</title>
bos@559 45
bos@559 46 <para>You can modify the output style that Mercurial will use
bos@580 47 for every command by editing your <filename
bos@580 48 role="special">~/.hgrc</filename> file, naming the style
bos@580 49 you would prefer to use.</para>
bos@580 50
bos@580 51 <programlisting>[ui]
bos@580 52 style = compact</programlisting>
bos@559 53
bos@559 54 <para>If you write a style of your own, you can use it by either
bos@559 55 providing the path to your style file, or copying your style
bos@559 56 file into a location where Mercurial can find it (typically
bos@559 57 the <literal>templates</literal> subdirectory of your
bos@559 58 Mercurial install directory).</para>
bos@559 59
bos@559 60 </sect2>
bos@559 61 </sect1>
bos@559 62 <sect1>
bos@559 63 <title>Commands that support styles and templates</title>
bos@559 64
bos@559 65 <para>All of Mercurial's
bos@559 66 <quote><literal>log</literal>-like</quote> commands let you use
bos@559 67 styles and templates: <command role="hg-cmd">hg
bos@559 68 incoming</command>, <command role="hg-cmd">hg log</command>,
bos@559 69 <command role="hg-cmd">hg outgoing</command>, and <command
bos@559 70 role="hg-cmd">hg tip</command>.</para>
bos@559 71
bos@559 72 <para>As I write this manual, these are so far the only commands
bos@559 73 that support styles and templates. Since these are the most
bos@559 74 important commands that need customisable output, there has been
bos@559 75 little pressure from the Mercurial user community to add style
bos@559 76 and template support to other commands.</para>
bos@559 77
bos@559 78 </sect1>
bos@559 79 <sect1>
bos@559 80 <title>The basics of templating</title>
bos@559 81
bos@559 82 <para>At its simplest, a Mercurial template is a piece of text.
bos@559 83 Some of the text never changes, while other parts are
bos@559 84 <emphasis>expanded</emphasis>, or replaced with new text, when
bos@559 85 necessary.</para>
bos@559 86
bos@559 87 <para>Before we continue, let's look again at a simple example of
bos@559 88 Mercurial's normal output.</para>
bos@559 89
bos@567 90 &interaction.template.simple.normal;
bos@559 91
bos@559 92 <para>Now, let's run the same command, but using a template to
bos@559 93 change its output.</para>
bos@559 94
bos@567 95 &interaction.template.simple.simplest;
bos@559 96
bos@559 97 <para>The example above illustrates the simplest possible
bos@559 98 template; it's just a piece of static text, printed once for
bos@559 99 each changeset. The <option
bos@559 100 role="hg-opt-log">--template</option> option to the <command
bos@559 101 role="hg-cmd">hg log</command> command tells Mercurial to use
bos@559 102 the given text as the template when printing each
bos@559 103 changeset.</para>
bos@559 104
bos@559 105 <para>Notice that the template string above ends with the text
bos@559 106 <quote><literal>\n</literal></quote>. This is an
bos@559 107 <emphasis>escape sequence</emphasis>, telling Mercurial to print
bos@559 108 a newline at the end of each template item. If you omit this
bos@559 109 newline, Mercurial will run each piece of output together. See
dongsheng@625 110 section <xref linkend="sec.template.escape"/> for more details
bos@559 111 of escape sequences.</para>
bos@559 112
bos@559 113 <para>A template that prints a fixed string of text all the time
bos@559 114 isn't very useful; let's try something a bit more
bos@559 115 complex.</para>
bos@559 116
bos@567 117 &interaction.template.simple.simplesub;
bos@559 118
bos@559 119 <para>As you can see, the string
bos@559 120 <quote><literal>{desc}</literal></quote> in the template has
bos@559 121 been replaced in the output with the description of each
bos@559 122 changeset. Every time Mercurial finds text enclosed in curly
bos@559 123 braces (<quote><literal>{</literal></quote> and
ori@561 124 <quote><literal>}</literal></quote>), it will try to replace the braces
bos@559 125 and text with the expansion of whatever is inside. To print a
bos@559 126 literal curly brace, you must escape it, as described in section
bos@559 127 <xref
dongsheng@625 128 linkend="sec.template.escape"/>.</para>
dongsheng@625 129
dongsheng@625 130 </sect1>
dongsheng@625 131 <sect1 id="sec.template.keyword">
bos@559 132 <title>Common template keywords</title>
bos@559 133
bos@559 134 <para>You can start writing simple templates immediately using the
bos@559 135 keywords below.</para>
bos@559 136
bos@559 137 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 138 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 139 role="template-keyword">author</literal>: String. The
bos@559 140 unmodified author of the changeset.</para>
bos@559 141 </listitem>
bos@559 142 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 143 role="template-keyword">branches</literal>: String. The
bos@559 144 name of the branch on which the changeset was committed.
bos@559 145 Will be empty if the branch name was
bos@559 146 <literal>default</literal>.</para>
bos@559 147 </listitem>
bos@559 148 <listitem><para><literal role="template-keyword">date</literal>:
bos@559 149 Date information. The date when the changeset was
bos@559 150 committed. This is <emphasis>not</emphasis> human-readable;
bos@559 151 you must pass it through a filter that will render it
bos@559 152 appropriately. See section <xref
dongsheng@625 153 linkend="sec.template.filter"/> for more information
bos@559 154 on filters. The date is expressed as a pair of numbers. The
bos@559 155 first number is a Unix UTC timestamp (seconds since January
bos@559 156 1, 1970); the second is the offset of the committer's
bos@559 157 timezone from UTC, in seconds.</para>
bos@559 158 </listitem>
bos@559 159 <listitem><para><literal role="template-keyword">desc</literal>:
bos@559 160 String. The text of the changeset description.</para>
bos@559 161 </listitem>
bos@559 162 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 163 role="template-keyword">files</literal>: List of strings.
bos@559 164 All files modified, added, or removed by this
bos@559 165 changeset.</para>
bos@559 166 </listitem>
bos@559 167 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 168 role="template-keyword">file_adds</literal>: List of
bos@559 169 strings. Files added by this changeset.</para>
bos@559 170 </listitem>
bos@559 171 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 172 role="template-keyword">file_dels</literal>: List of
bos@559 173 strings. Files removed by this changeset.</para>
bos@559 174 </listitem>
bos@559 175 <listitem><para><literal role="template-keyword">node</literal>:
bos@559 176 String. The changeset identification hash, as a
bos@559 177 40-character hexadecimal string.</para>
bos@559 178 </listitem>
bos@559 179 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 180 role="template-keyword">parents</literal>: List of
bos@559 181 strings. The parents of the changeset.</para>
bos@559 182 </listitem>
bos@559 183 <listitem><para><literal role="template-keyword">rev</literal>:
bos@559 184 Integer. The repository-local changeset revision
bos@559 185 number.</para>
bos@559 186 </listitem>
bos@559 187 <listitem><para><literal role="template-keyword">tags</literal>:
bos@559 188 List of strings. Any tags associated with the
bos@559 189 changeset.</para>
bos@559 190 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 191
bos@559 192 <para>A few simple experiments will show us what to expect when we
bos@559 193 use these keywords; you can see the results below.</para>
bos@559 194
bos@567 195 &interaction.template.simple.keywords;
bos@559 196
bos@559 197 <para>As we noted above, the date keyword does not produce
bos@559 198 human-readable output, so we must treat it specially. This
bos@559 199 involves using a <emphasis>filter</emphasis>, about which more
bos@559 200 in section <xref
dongsheng@625 201 linkend="sec.template.filter"/>.</para>
bos@559 202
bos@567 203 &interaction.template.simple.datekeyword;
bos@559 204
bos@559 205 </sect1>
dongsheng@625 206 <sect1 id="sec.template.escape">
bos@559 207 <title>Escape sequences</title>
bos@559 208
bos@559 209 <para>Mercurial's templating engine recognises the most commonly
bos@559 210 used escape sequences in strings. When it sees a backslash
bos@559 211 (<quote><literal>\</literal></quote>) character, it looks at the
bos@559 212 following character and substitutes the two characters with a
bos@559 213 single replacement, as described below.</para>
bos@559 214
bos@559 215 <itemizedlist>
bos@580 216 <listitem><para><literal>\</literal>:
bos@559 217 Backslash, <quote><literal>\</literal></quote>, ASCII
bos@559 218 134.</para>
bos@559 219 </listitem>
bos@580 220 <listitem><para><literal>\n</literal>: Newline,
bos@559 221 ASCII 12.</para>
bos@559 222 </listitem>
bos@580 223 <listitem><para><literal>\r</literal>: Carriage
bos@559 224 return, ASCII 15.</para>
bos@559 225 </listitem>
bos@580 226 <listitem><para><literal>\t</literal>: Tab, ASCII
bos@559 227 11.</para>
bos@559 228 </listitem>
bos@580 229 <listitem><para><literal>\v</literal>: Vertical
bos@559 230 tab, ASCII 13.</para>
bos@559 231 </listitem>
bos@580 232 <listitem><para><literal>{</literal>: Open curly
bos@559 233 brace, <quote><literal>{</literal></quote>, ASCII
bos@559 234 173.</para>
bos@559 235 </listitem>
bos@580 236 <listitem><para><literal>}</literal>: Close curly
bos@559 237 brace, <quote><literal>}</literal></quote>, ASCII
bos@559 238 175.</para>
bos@559 239 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 240
bos@559 241 <para>As indicated above, if you want the expansion of a template
bos@559 242 to contain a literal <quote><literal>\</literal></quote>,
bos@559 243 <quote><literal>{</literal></quote>, or
bos@559 244 <quote><literal>{</literal></quote> character, you must escape
bos@559 245 it.</para>
bos@559 246
bos@559 247 </sect1>
dongsheng@625 248 <sect1 id="sec.template.filter">
bos@559 249 <title>Filtering keywords to change their results</title>
bos@559 250
bos@559 251 <para>Some of the results of template expansion are not
bos@559 252 immediately easy to use. Mercurial lets you specify an optional
bos@559 253 chain of <emphasis>filters</emphasis> to modify the result of
bos@559 254 expanding a keyword. You have already seen a common filter,
bos@559 255 <literal role="template-kw-filt-date">isodate</literal>, in
bos@559 256 action above, to make a date readable.</para>
bos@559 257
bos@559 258 <para>Below is a list of the most commonly used filters that
bos@559 259 Mercurial supports. While some filters can be applied to any
bos@559 260 text, others can only be used in specific circumstances. The
bos@559 261 name of each filter is followed first by an indication of where
bos@559 262 it can be used, then a description of its effect.</para>
bos@559 263
bos@559 264 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 265 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 266 role="template-filter">addbreaks</literal>: Any text. Add
bos@559 267 an XHTML <quote><literal>&lt;br/&gt;</literal></quote> tag
bos@559 268 before the end of every line except the last. For example,
bos@559 269 <quote><literal>foo\nbar</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 270 <quote><literal>foo&lt;br/&gt;\nbar</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 271 </listitem>
bos@559 272 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 273 role="template-kw-filt-date">age</literal>: <literal
bos@559 274 role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword. Render
bos@559 275 the age of the date, relative to the current time. Yields a
bos@559 276 string like <quote><literal>10
bos@559 277 minutes</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 278 </listitem>
bos@559 279 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 280 role="template-filter">basename</literal>: Any text, but
bos@559 281 most useful for the <literal
bos@559 282 role="template-keyword">files</literal> keyword and its
bos@559 283 relatives. Treat the text as a path, and return the
bos@559 284 basename. For example,
bos@559 285 <quote><literal>foo/bar/baz</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 286 <quote><literal>baz</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 287 </listitem>
bos@559 288 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 289 role="template-kw-filt-date">date</literal>: <literal
bos@559 290 role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword. Render a
bos@559 291 date in a similar format to the Unix <literal
bos@559 292 role="template-keyword">date</literal> command, but with
bos@559 293 timezone included. Yields a string like <quote><literal>Mon
bos@559 294 Sep 04 15:13:13 2006 -0700</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 295 </listitem>
bos@559 296 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 297 role="template-kw-filt-author">domain</literal>: Any text,
bos@559 298 but most useful for the <literal
bos@559 299 role="template-keyword">author</literal> keyword. Finds
bos@559 300 the first string that looks like an email address, and
bos@559 301 extract just the domain component. For example,
bos@559 302 <quote><literal>Bryan O'Sullivan
bos@559 303 &lt;bos@serpentine.com&gt;</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 304 <quote><literal>serpentine.com</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 305 </listitem>
bos@559 306 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 307 role="template-kw-filt-author">email</literal>: Any text,
bos@559 308 but most useful for the <literal
bos@559 309 role="template-keyword">author</literal> keyword. Extract
bos@559 310 the first string that looks like an email address. For
bos@559 311 example, <quote><literal>Bryan O'Sullivan
bos@559 312 &lt;bos@serpentine.com&gt;</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 313 <quote><literal>bos@serpentine.com</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 314 </listitem>
bos@559 315 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 316 role="template-filter">escape</literal>: Any text.
bos@559 317 Replace the special XML/XHTML characters
bos@559 318 <quote><literal>&amp;</literal></quote>,
bos@559 319 <quote><literal>&lt;</literal></quote> and
bos@559 320 <quote><literal>&gt;</literal></quote> with XML
bos@559 321 entities.</para>
bos@559 322 </listitem>
bos@559 323 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 324 role="template-filter">fill68</literal>: Any text. Wrap
bos@559 325 the text to fit in 68 columns. This is useful before you
bos@559 326 pass text through the <literal
bos@559 327 role="template-filter">tabindent</literal> filter, and
bos@559 328 still want it to fit in an 80-column fixed-font
bos@559 329 window.</para>
bos@559 330 </listitem>
bos@559 331 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 332 role="template-filter">fill76</literal>: Any text. Wrap
bos@559 333 the text to fit in 76 columns.</para>
bos@559 334 </listitem>
bos@559 335 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 336 role="template-filter">firstline</literal>: Any text.
bos@559 337 Yield the first line of text, without any trailing
bos@559 338 newlines.</para>
bos@559 339 </listitem>
bos@559 340 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 341 role="template-kw-filt-date">hgdate</literal>: <literal
bos@559 342 role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword. Render
bos@559 343 the date as a pair of readable numbers. Yields a string
bos@559 344 like <quote><literal>1157407993
bos@559 345 25200</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 346 </listitem>
bos@559 347 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 348 role="template-kw-filt-date">isodate</literal>: <literal
bos@559 349 role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword. Render
bos@559 350 the date as a text string in ISO 8601 format. Yields a
bos@559 351 string like <quote><literal>2006-09-04 15:13:13
bos@559 352 -0700</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 353 </listitem>
bos@559 354 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 355 role="template-filter">obfuscate</literal>: Any text, but
bos@559 356 most useful for the <literal
bos@559 357 role="template-keyword">author</literal> keyword. Yield
bos@559 358 the input text rendered as a sequence of XML entities. This
bos@559 359 helps to defeat some particularly stupid screen-scraping
bos@559 360 email harvesting spambots.</para>
bos@559 361 </listitem>
bos@559 362 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 363 role="template-kw-filt-author">person</literal>: Any text,
bos@559 364 but most useful for the <literal
bos@559 365 role="template-keyword">author</literal> keyword. Yield
bos@559 366 the text before an email address. For example,
bos@559 367 <quote><literal>Bryan O'Sullivan
bos@559 368 &lt;bos@serpentine.com&gt;</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 369 <quote><literal>Bryan O'Sullivan</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 370 </listitem>
bos@559 371 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 372 role="template-kw-filt-date">rfc822date</literal>:
bos@559 373 <literal role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword.
bos@559 374 Render a date using the same format used in email headers.
bos@559 375 Yields a string like <quote><literal>Mon, 04 Sep 2006
bos@559 376 15:13:13 -0700</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 377 </listitem>
bos@559 378 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 379 role="template-kw-filt-node">short</literal>: Changeset
bos@559 380 hash. Yield the short form of a changeset hash, i.e. a
bos@559 381 12-character hexadecimal string.</para>
bos@559 382 </listitem>
bos@559 383 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 384 role="template-kw-filt-date">shortdate</literal>: <literal
bos@559 385 role="template-keyword">date</literal> keyword. Render
bos@559 386 the year, month, and day of the date. Yields a string like
bos@559 387 <quote><literal>2006-09-04</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 388 </listitem>
bos@559 389 <listitem><para><literal role="template-filter">strip</literal>:
bos@559 390 Any text. Strip all leading and trailing whitespace from
bos@559 391 the string.</para>
bos@559 392 </listitem>
bos@559 393 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 394 role="template-filter">tabindent</literal>: Any text.
bos@559 395 Yield the text, with every line except the first starting
bos@559 396 with a tab character.</para>
bos@559 397 </listitem>
bos@559 398 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 399 role="template-filter">urlescape</literal>: Any text.
bos@559 400 Escape all characters that are considered
bos@559 401 <quote>special</quote> by URL parsers. For example,
bos@559 402 <literal>foo bar</literal> becomes
bos@559 403 <literal>foo%20bar</literal>.</para>
bos@559 404 </listitem>
bos@559 405 <listitem><para><literal
bos@559 406 role="template-kw-filt-author">user</literal>: Any text,
bos@559 407 but most useful for the <literal
bos@559 408 role="template-keyword">author</literal> keyword. Return
bos@559 409 the <quote>user</quote> portion of an email address. For
bos@559 410 example, <quote><literal>Bryan O'Sullivan
bos@559 411 &lt;bos@serpentine.com&gt;</literal></quote> becomes
bos@559 412 <quote><literal>bos</literal></quote>.</para>
bos@559 413 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 414
bos@567 415 &interaction.template.simple.manyfilters;
bos@559 416
bos@559 417 <note>
bos@559 418 <para> If you try to apply a filter to a piece of data that it
bos@559 419 cannot process, Mercurial will fail and print a Python
bos@559 420 exception. For example, trying to run the output of the
bos@559 421 <literal role="template-keyword">desc</literal> keyword into
bos@559 422 the <literal role="template-kw-filt-date">isodate</literal>
bos@559 423 filter is not a good idea.</para>
bos@559 424 </note>
bos@559 425
bos@559 426 <sect2>
bos@559 427 <title>Combining filters</title>
bos@559 428
bos@559 429 <para>It is easy to combine filters to yield output in the form
bos@559 430 you would like. The following chain of filters tidies up a
bos@559 431 description, then makes sure that it fits cleanly into 68
bos@559 432 columns, then indents it by a further 8 characters (at least
bos@559 433 on Unix-like systems, where a tab is conventionally 8
bos@559 434 characters wide).</para>
bos@559 435
bos@567 436 &interaction.template.simple.combine;
bos@559 437
bos@559 438 <para>Note the use of <quote><literal>\t</literal></quote> (a
bos@559 439 tab character) in the template to force the first line to be
bos@559 440 indented; this is necessary since <literal
bos@559 441 role="template-keyword">tabindent</literal> indents all
bos@559 442 lines <emphasis>except</emphasis> the first.</para>
bos@559 443
bos@559 444 <para>Keep in mind that the order of filters in a chain is
bos@559 445 significant. The first filter is applied to the result of the
bos@559 446 keyword; the second to the result of the first filter; and so
bos@559 447 on. For example, using <literal>fill68|tabindent</literal>
bos@559 448 gives very different results from
bos@559 449 <literal>tabindent|fill68</literal>.</para>
bos@559 450
bos@559 451
bos@559 452 </sect2>
bos@559 453 </sect1>
bos@559 454 <sect1>
bos@559 455 <title>From templates to styles</title>
bos@559 456
bos@559 457 <para>A command line template provides a quick and simple way to
bos@559 458 format some output. Templates can become verbose, though, and
bos@559 459 it's useful to be able to give a template a name. A style file
bos@559 460 is a template with a name, stored in a file.</para>
bos@559 461
bos@559 462 <para>More than that, using a style file unlocks the power of
bos@559 463 Mercurial's templating engine in ways that are not possible
bos@559 464 using the command line <option
bos@559 465 role="hg-opt-log">--template</option> option.</para>
bos@559 466
bos@559 467 <sect2>
bos@559 468 <title>The simplest of style files</title>
bos@559 469
bos@559 470 <para>Our simple style file contains just one line:</para>
bos@559 471
bos@567 472 &interaction.template.simple.rev;
bos@559 473
bos@559 474 <para>This tells Mercurial, <quote>if you're printing a
bos@559 475 changeset, use the text on the right as the
bos@559 476 template</quote>.</para>
bos@559 477
bos@559 478 </sect2>
bos@559 479 <sect2>
bos@559 480 <title>Style file syntax</title>
bos@559 481
bos@559 482 <para>The syntax rules for a style file are simple.</para>
bos@559 483
bos@559 484 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 485 <listitem><para>The file is processed one line at a
bos@559 486 time.</para>
bos@559 487 </listitem>
bos@559 488 <listitem><para>Leading and trailing white space are
bos@559 489 ignored.</para>
bos@559 490 </listitem>
bos@559 491 <listitem><para>Empty lines are skipped.</para>
bos@559 492 </listitem>
bos@559 493 <listitem><para>If a line starts with either of the characters
bos@559 494 <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> or
bos@559 495 <quote><literal>;</literal></quote>, the entire line is
bos@559 496 treated as a comment, and skipped as if empty.</para>
bos@559 497 </listitem>
bos@559 498 <listitem><para>A line starts with a keyword. This must start
bos@559 499 with an alphabetic character or underscore, and can
bos@559 500 subsequently contain any alphanumeric character or
bos@559 501 underscore. (In regexp notation, a keyword must match
bos@559 502 <literal>[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*</literal>.)</para>
bos@559 503 </listitem>
bos@559 504 <listitem><para>The next element must be an
bos@559 505 <quote><literal>=</literal></quote> character, which can
bos@559 506 be preceded or followed by an arbitrary amount of white
bos@559 507 space.</para>
bos@559 508 </listitem>
bos@559 509 <listitem><para>If the rest of the line starts and ends with
bos@559 510 matching quote characters (either single or double quote),
bos@559 511 it is treated as a template body.</para>
bos@559 512 </listitem>
bos@559 513 <listitem><para>If the rest of the line <emphasis>does
bos@559 514 not</emphasis> start with a quote character, it is
bos@559 515 treated as the name of a file; the contents of this file
bos@559 516 will be read and used as a template body.</para>
bos@559 517 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 518
bos@559 519 </sect2>
bos@559 520 </sect1>
bos@559 521 <sect1>
bos@559 522 <title>Style files by example</title>
bos@559 523
bos@559 524 <para>To illustrate how to write a style file, we will construct a
bos@559 525 few by example. Rather than provide a complete style file and
bos@559 526 walk through it, we'll mirror the usual process of developing a
bos@559 527 style file by starting with something very simple, and walking
bos@559 528 through a series of successively more complete examples.</para>
bos@559 529
bos@559 530 <sect2>
bos@559 531 <title>Identifying mistakes in style files</title>
bos@559 532
bos@559 533 <para>If Mercurial encounters a problem in a style file you are
bos@559 534 working on, it prints a terse error message that, once you
bos@559 535 figure out what it means, is actually quite useful.</para>
bos@559 536
bos@567 537 &interaction.template.svnstyle.syntax.input;
bos@559 538
bos@559 539 <para>Notice that <filename>broken.style</filename> attempts to
bos@559 540 define a <literal>changeset</literal> keyword, but forgets to
bos@559 541 give any content for it. When instructed to use this style
bos@559 542 file, Mercurial promptly complains.</para>
bos@559 543
bos@567 544 &interaction.template.svnstyle.syntax.error;
bos@559 545
bos@559 546 <para>This error message looks intimidating, but it is not too
bos@559 547 hard to follow.</para>
bos@559 548
bos@559 549 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 550 <listitem><para>The first component is simply Mercurial's way
bos@559 551 of saying <quote>I am giving up</quote>.</para>
bos@580 552 <programlisting>___abort___: broken.style:1: parse error</programlisting>
bos@559 553 </listitem>
bos@559 554 <listitem><para>Next comes the name of the style file that
bos@559 555 contains the error.</para>
bos@580 556 <programlisting>abort: ___broken.style___:1: parse error</programlisting>
bos@559 557 </listitem>
bos@559 558 <listitem><para>Following the file name is the line number
bos@559 559 where the error was encountered.</para>
bos@580 560 <programlisting>abort: broken.style:___1___: parse error</programlisting>
bos@559 561 </listitem>
bos@559 562 <listitem><para>Finally, a description of what went
bos@559 563 wrong.</para>
bos@580 564 <programlisting>abort: broken.style:1: ___parse error___</programlisting>
bos@559 565 </listitem>
bos@559 566 <listitem><para>The description of the problem is not always
bos@559 567 clear (as in this case), but even when it is cryptic, it
bos@559 568 is almost always trivial to visually inspect the offending
bos@559 569 line in the style file and see what is wrong.</para>
bos@559 570 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 571
bos@559 572 </sect2>
bos@559 573 <sect2>
bos@559 574 <title>Uniquely identifying a repository</title>
bos@559 575
bos@559 576 <para>If you would like to be able to identify a Mercurial
bos@559 577 repository <quote>fairly uniquely</quote> using a short string
bos@559 578 as an identifier, you can use the first revision in the
bos@567 579 repository.</para>
bos@567 580
bos@567 581 &interaction.template.svnstyle.id;
bos@567 582
bos@567 583 <para>This is not guaranteed to be unique, but it is
bos@567 584 nevertheless useful in many cases.</para>
bos@559 585 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 586 <listitem><para>It will not work in a completely empty
bos@559 587 repository, because such a repository does not have a
bos@559 588 revision zero.</para>
bos@559 589 </listitem>
bos@559 590 <listitem><para>Neither will it work in the (extremely rare)
bos@559 591 case where a repository is a merge of two or more formerly
bos@559 592 independent repositories, and you still have those
bos@559 593 repositories around.</para>
bos@559 594 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 595 <para>Here are some uses to which you could put this
bos@559 596 identifier:</para>
bos@559 597 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 598 <listitem><para>As a key into a table for a database that
bos@559 599 manages repositories on a server.</para>
bos@559 600 </listitem>
bos@559 601 <listitem><para>As half of a {<emphasis>repository
bos@559 602 ID</emphasis>, <emphasis>revision ID</emphasis>} tuple.
bos@559 603 Save this information away when you run an automated build
bos@559 604 or other activity, so that you can <quote>replay</quote>
bos@559 605 the build later if necessary.</para>
bos@559 606 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 607
bos@559 608 </sect2>
bos@559 609 <sect2>
bos@559 610 <title>Mimicking Subversion's output</title>
bos@559 611
bos@559 612 <para>Let's try to emulate the default output format used by
bos@567 613 another revision control tool, Subversion.</para>
bos@567 614
bos@567 615 &interaction.template.svnstyle.short;
bos@559 616
bos@559 617 <para>Since Subversion's output style is fairly simple, it is
bos@559 618 easy to copy-and-paste a hunk of its output into a file, and
bos@559 619 replace the text produced above by Subversion with the
bos@567 620 template values we'd like to see expanded.</para>
bos@567 621
bos@567 622 &interaction.template.svnstyle.template;
bos@559 623
bos@559 624 <para>There are a few small ways in which this template deviates
bos@559 625 from the output produced by Subversion.</para>
bos@559 626 <itemizedlist>
bos@559 627 <listitem><para>Subversion prints a <quote>readable</quote>
ori@561 628 date (the <quote><literal>Wed, 27 Sep 2006</literal></quote> in the
bos@559 629 example output above) in parentheses. Mercurial's
bos@559 630 templating engine does not provide a way to display a date
bos@559 631 in this format without also printing the time and time
bos@559 632 zone.</para>
bos@559 633 </listitem>
bos@559 634 <listitem><para>We emulate Subversion's printing of
bos@559 635 <quote>separator</quote> lines full of
bos@559 636 <quote><literal>-</literal></quote> characters by ending
bos@559 637 the template with such a line. We use the templating
bos@559 638 engine's <literal role="template-keyword">header</literal>
bos@559 639 keyword to print a separator line as the first line of
bos@559 640 output (see below), thus achieving similar output to
bos@559 641 Subversion.</para>
bos@559 642 </listitem>
bos@559 643 <listitem><para>Subversion's output includes a count in the
bos@559 644 header of the number of lines in the commit message. We
bos@559 645 cannot replicate this in Mercurial; the templating engine
bos@559 646 does not currently provide a filter that counts the number
bos@559 647 of lines the template generates.</para>
bos@559 648 </listitem></itemizedlist>
bos@559 649 <para>It took me no more than a minute or two of work to replace
bos@559 650 literal text from an example of Subversion's output with some
bos@559 651 keywords and filters to give the template above. The style
bos@567 652 file simply refers to the template.</para>
bos@567 653
bos@567 654 &interaction.template.svnstyle.style;
bos@559 655
bos@559 656 <para>We could have included the text of the template file
bos@559 657 directly in the style file by enclosing it in quotes and
bos@559 658 replacing the newlines with
bos@559 659 <quote><literal>\n</literal></quote> sequences, but it would
bos@559 660 have made the style file too difficult to read. Readability
bos@559 661 is a good guide when you're trying to decide whether some text
bos@559 662 belongs in a style file, or in a template file that the style
bos@559 663 file points to. If the style file will look too big or
bos@559 664 cluttered if you insert a literal piece of text, drop it into
bos@559 665 a template instead.</para>
bos@559 666
bos@559 667 </sect2>
bos@559 668 </sect1>
bos@559 669 </chapter>
bos@559 670
bos@559 671 <!--
bos@559 672 local variables:
bos@559 673 sgml-parent-document: ("00book.xml" "book" "chapter")
bos@559 674 end:
bos@559 675 -->