Darcs commands

The general format of a darcs command is

% darcs COMMAND OPTIONS ARGUMENTS ...

Here COMMAND is a command such as add or record, which of course may have one or more arguments. Options have the form --option or -o, while arguments vary from command to command. There are many options which are common to a number of different commands, which will be summarized here.

If you wish, you may use any unambiguous beginning of a command name as a shortcut: for darcs record, you could type darcs recor or darcs rec, but not darcs re since that could be confused with darcs replace, darcs revert and darcs remove.

In some cases, COMMAND actually consists of two words, a super-command and a subcommand. For example, the ``display the manifest'' command has the form darcs query manifest.

Command overview

Not all commands modify the ``patches'' of your repository (that is, the named patches which other users can pull); some commands only affect the copy of the source tree you're working on (your ``working directory''), and some affect both. This table summarizes what you should expect from each one and will hopefully serve as guide when you're having doubts about which command to use.

affects	patches	working directory
record	yes	no
unrecord	yes	no
rollback	yes	yes
revert	no	yes
unrevert	no	yes
pull	yes	yes
obliterate	yes	yes
apply	yes	yes
push^6.1	no	no
send^6.2	no	no
put^6.3	no	no

Common options to darcs commands

--help

Every COMMAND accepts --help as an argument, which tells it to provide a bit of help. Among other things, this help always provides an accurate listing of the options available with that command, and is guaranteed never to be out of sync with the version of darcs you actually have installed (unlike this manual, which could be for an entirely different version of darcs).

% darcs COMMAND --help

--disable

Every COMMAND accepts the --disable option, which can be used in _darcs/prefs/defaults to disable some commands in the repository. This can be helpful if you want to protect the repository from accidental use of advanced commands like obliterate, unpull, unrecord or amend-record.

--verbose, --quiet, --normal-verbosity

Most commands also accept the --verbose option, which tells darcs to provide additional output. The amount of verbosity varies from command to command. Commands that accept --verbose\verb also accept --quiet\verb, which surpresses non-error output, and --normal-verbosity\verb which can be used to restore the default verbosity if --verbose or --quiet is in the defaults file.

--debug, --debug-http

Many commands also accept the --debug option, which causes darcs to generate additional output that may be useful for debugging its behavior, but which otherwise would not be interesting. Option --debug-http makes darcs output debugging info for libcurl.

--repodir

Another common option is the --repodir option, which allows you to specify the directory of the repository in which to perform the command. This option is used with commands, such as whatsnew, that ordinarily would be performed within a repository directory, and allows you to use those commands without actually being in the repository directory when calling the command. This is useful when running darcs in a pipe, as might be the case when running apply from a mailer.

--remote-repo

Some commands, such as pull require a remote repository to be specified, either from the command line or as a default. The --remote-repo provides an alternative way to supply this remote repository path. This flag can be seen as temporarily ``replacing'' the default repository. Setting it causes the command to ignore the default repository (it also does not affect, i.e. overwrite the default repository). On the other hand, if any other repositories are supplied as command line arguments, this flag will be ignored (and the default repository may be overwritten).

Selecting patches

Many commands operate on a patch or patches that have already been recorded. There are a number of options that specify which patches are selected for these operations: --patch, --match, --tag, and variants on these, which for --patch are --patches, --from-patch, and --to-patch. The --patch and --tag forms simply take (POSIX extended, aka egrep) regular expressions and match them against tag and patch names. --match, described below, allows more powerful patterns.

The plural forms of these options select all matching patches. The singular forms select the last matching patch. The range (from and to) forms select patches after or up to (both inclusive) the last matching patch.

These options use the current order of patches in the repository. darcs may reorder patches, so this is not necessarily the order of creation or the order in which patches were applied. However, as long as you are just recording patches in your own repository, they will remain in order.

When a patch or a group of patches is selected, all patches they depend on get silently selected too. For example: darcs pull --patches bugfix means ``pull all the patches with `bugfix' in their name, along with any patches they require.'' If you really only want patches with `bugfix' in their name, you should use the --no-deps option, which makes darcs exclude any matched patches from the selection which have dependencies that are themselves not explicitly matched by the selection.

For unrecord, unpull and obliterate, patches that depend on the selected patches are silently included, or if --no-deps is used selected patches with dependencies on not selected patches are excluded from the selection.

Match

Currently --match accepts six primitive match types, although there are plans to expand it to match more patterns. Also, note that the syntax is still preliminary and subject to change.

The first match type accepts a literal string which is checked against the patch name. The syntax is

darcs annotate --summary --match 'exact foo+bar'

This is useful for situations where a patch name contains characters that could be considered special for regular expressions.

In this and the other match types, the argument must be enclosed in double quotes if it contains spaces. You can escape a quote in the argument with a backslash; backslash escapes itself, but it is treated literally if followed by a character other than a double quote or backslash, so it is typically not necessary to escape a backslash. No such escaping is necessary unless the argument is enclosed in double quotes.

The second match type accepts a regular expression which is checked against the patch name. The syntax is

darcs annotate --summary --match 'name foo'

Note that to match regexp metacharacters, such as (, literally, they must be escaped with backslash along with any embedded double quotes. To match a literal backslash it must be written quadrupled in general, but often it need not be escaped, since backslash is only special in regexps when followed by a metacharacter. In the following example pairs, the first literal is matched by the second sequence in the match name: ``"'':``\"'', ``\'':``\\\\'', ``\x'':``\x'', ``('':``\(''.

The third match type matches the darcs hash for each patch:

darcs annotate --summary --match \
  'hash 20040403105958-53a90-c719567e92c3b0ab9eddd5290b705712b8b918ef'

Note you need to provide the full hash string as above. This is intended to be used, for example, by programs allowing you to view darcs repositories (e.g. CGI scripts like viewCVS).

The fourth match type accepts a regular expression which is checked against the patch author. The syntax is

darcs annotate --summary --match 'author foo'

There is also support for matching by date. This is done using commands such as

darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "last week"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date yesterday'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "today 14:00"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "tea time yesterday"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "3 days before last year at 17:00"'
darcs changes --from-match 'date "Sat Jun  30 11:31:30 EDT 2004"'

Only English date specifications are supported--specifically you must use English day and month names. Also, only a limited set of time zones is supported (compatible with GNU coreutils' date parsing). Unrecognized zones are treated as UTC, which may result in the timestamps printed in change entries not being recognized by the date matching. You can avoid this problem on a POSIX-like system by running darcs in the UTC zone to get the times initially, e.g.:

TZ=UTC darcs changes

When matching on the ISO format, a partial date is treated as a range. English dates can either refer to a specific day (``6 months ago',``day before yesterday''), or to an interval from some past date (``last month'') to the present. Putting this all together, if today is ``2004-07-24'' then the following matches should work:

date patches selected

2004 from 2004-01-01 up to and including 2004-12-31

2004-01 from 2004-01-01 up to and including 2004-01-31

2004-01-01 during 2004-01-01

today during 2004-07-24 (starting midnight in your timezone)

yesterday during 2004-07-23

6 months ago during 2004-01-23

last 6 months since 2004-01-23

last month since 2004-06-23 (not 2004-06-01!)

last week since 2004-07-16

date	patches selected
2004	from 2004-01-01 up to and including 2004-12-31
2004-01	from 2004-01-01 up to and including 2004-01-31
2004-01-01	during 2004-01-01
today	during 2004-07-24 (starting midnight in your timezone)
yesterday	during 2004-07-23
6 months ago	during 2004-01-23
last 6 months	since 2004-01-23
last month	since 2004-06-23 (not 2004-06-01!)
last week	since 2004-07-16

For more precise control, you may specify an interval, either in a small subset of English or of the ISO 8601 format. If you use the ISO format, note that durations, when specified alone, are interpreted as being relative to the current date and time.

darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "between 2004-03-12 and last week"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "after 2005"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "in the last 3 weeks"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "P3M/2006-03-17"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "2004-01-02/2006-03-17"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "P2M6D"'

You may also prefer to combine date matching with a more specific pattern.

darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "last week" && name foo'

The sixth match type accepts a regular expression which is checked against file paths that the patch touches. The syntax is

darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch foo/bar.c'

The --match pattern can include the logical operators &&, || and not, as well as grouping of patterns with parentheses. For example

darcs annotate --summary --match 'name record && not name overrode'

--ignore-times

Darcs optimizes its operations by keeping track of the modification times of your files. This dramatically speeds up commands such as whatsnew and record which would otherwise require reading every file in the repository and comparing it with a reference version. However, there are times when this can cause problems, such as when running a series of darcs commands from a script, in which case often a file will be modified twice in the same second, which can lead to the second modification going unnoticed. The solution to such predicaments is the --ignore-times option, which instructs darcs not to trust the file modification times, but instead to check each file's contents explicitly.

--author

Several commands need to be able to identify you. Conventionally, you provide an email address for this purpose, which can include comments, e.g. David Roundy <droundy@abridgegame.org>. The easiest way to do this is to define an environment variable EMAIL or DARCS_EMAIL (with the latter overriding the former). You can also override this using the --author flag to any command. Alternatively, you could set your email address on a per-repository basis using the ``defaults'' mechanism for ``ALL'' commands, as described in Appendix

. Or, you could specify the author on a per-repository basis using the _darcs/prefs/author file as described in section

Also, a global author file can be created in your home directory with the name .darcs/author, on MS Windows . This file overrides the contents of the environment variables, but a repository-specific author file overrides the global author file.

--dont-compress, --compress

By default, darcs commands that write patches to disk will compress the patch files. If you don't want this, you can choose the --dont-compress option, which causes darcs not to compress the patch file.

--dry-run

The --dry-run option will cause darcs not to actually take the specified action, but only print what would have happened. Not all commands accept --dry-run, but those that do should accept the --summary option.

--summary, --no-summary

The --summary option shows a summary of the patches that would have been pulled/pushed/whatever. The format is similar to the output format of cvs update and looks like this:

A  ./added_but_not_recorded.c
A! ./added_but_not_recorded_conflicts.c
a  ./would_be_added_if_look_for_adds_option_was_used.h

M  ./modified.t -1 +1
M! ./modified_conflicts.t -1 +1

R  ./removed_but_not_recorded.c
R! ./removed_but_not_recorded_conflicts.c

You can probably guess what the flags mean from the clever file names.

: A is for files that have been added but not recorded yet.
: a is for files found using the --look-for-adds option available for whatsnew and record. They have not been added yet, but would be added automatically if --look-for-adds were used with the next record command.
: M is for files that have been modified in the working directory but not recorded yet. The number of added and subtracted lines is also shown.
: R is for files that have been removed, but the removal is not recorded yet.

An exclamation mark appears next to any option that has a conflict.

Resolution of conflicts

To resolve conflicts using an external tool, you need to specify a command to use, e.g.

--external-merge 'opendiff %1 %2 -ancestor %a -merge %o'

The %1 and %2 are replaced with the two versions to be merged, %a is replaced with the common ancestor of the two versions. Most importantly, %o is replaced with the name of the output file that darcs will require to be created holding the merged version. The above example works with the FileMerge.app tool that comes with Apple's developer tools. To use xxdiff, you would use

--external-merge 'xxdiff -m -O -M %o %1 %a %2'

To use kdiff3, you can use

--external-merge 'kdiff3 --output %o %a %1 %2'

To use tortoiseMerge, you can use

--external-merge 'tortoiseMerge /base:"%a" /mine:"%1" /theirs:"%2" /merged:"%o"'

(tortoiseMerge is a nice merge tool that comes with TortoiseSVN and works well on Windows.)

Note that the command is split into space-separated words and the first one is execed with the rest as arguments--it is not a shell command. In particular, on Windows this means that the first command path should not contain spaces and you should make sure the command is in your PATH.

The substitution of the % escapes is done everywhere. If you need to prevent substitution you can use a double percentage sign, i.e. %%a is substituted with %a. Here is an example script to use the Emacs' Ediff package for merging.

 #! /bin/sh
 # External merge command for darcs, using Emacs Ediff, via server if possible.
 # It needs args %1 %2 %a %o, i.e. the external merge command is, say,
 # `emerge3 %1 %2 %a %o'.
 test $# -eq 4 || exit 1
 form="(ediff-merge-files-with-ancestor"
 while test $# -gt 0; do
     count=$count.
     if [ $count = .... ]; then
         form=$form\ nil         # Lisp STARTUP-HOOKS arg
     fi
     case $1 in                  # Worry about quoting -- escape " and \
         *[\"\\]* ) form=$form\ \"$(echo $1 | sed -e's/["\\]/\\\0/g')\" ;;
         *) form=$form\ \"$1\" ;;
     esac
     shift
 done
 form=$form')'
 ( emacsclient --eval "$form" || # Emacs 22 server
   gnudoit "$form" ||            # XEmacs/Emacs 21 server
   emacs --eval "$form" ||       # Relatively slow to start up
   xemacs -eval "$form"          # Horribly slow to start up
 ) 2>/dev/null

It would be invoked like:

--external-merge 'emerge3 %1 %2 %a %o'

If you figure out how to use darcs with another merge tool, please let me know what flags you used so I can mention it here.

Note that if you do use an external merge tool, most likely you will want to add to your defaults file (_darcs/prefs/defaults or ~/.darcs/prefs, see , on MS Windows ) a line such as

ALL external-merge kdiff3 --output %o %a %1 %2

ALL external-merge tortoiseMerge /base:"%a" /mine:"%1" /theirs:"%2" /merged:"%o"

Note that the defaults file does not want quotes around the command.

--sendmail-command

SENDMAIL

On Unix, the `darcs send' command relies on sendmail(8). The `-sendmail-command' or $SENDMAIL environment variable can be used to provide an explicit path to this program; otherwise the standard locations /usr/sbin/sendmail and /usr/lib/sendmail will be tried.

--posthook=COMMAND, --no-posthook

To provide a command that should be run whenever a darcs command completes successfully, use --posthook to specify the command. This is useful for people who want to have a command run whenever a patch is applied. Using --no-posthook will disable running the command.

--run-posthook, --prompt-posthook

These options control prompting before running the posthook. Use --prompt-posthook to have darcs prompt before running the posthook command. You may use -run-posthook to reenable the default behavior of running user-specified posthooks.

Some darcs commands export to the posthook command information about the changes being made. In particular, three environment variables are defined. DARCS_PATCHES contains a human-readable summary of the patches being acted upon. The format is the same as "darcs changes". DARCS_PATCHES_XML Contains the same details, in the same XML format as "darcs changes". Finally, DARCS_FILES contains a list of the files affected, one file per line. If your repository has filenames including newlines, you'll just have to cope. Note, however, that none of these environment variables are defined when running under windows. Note also that we refuse to pass environment variables greater in size than 10k, in order to avoid triggering E2BIG errors.

--prehook=COMMAND, --no-prehook

To provide a command that should be run before a darcs command is executed, use --prehook to specify the command. An example use is for people who want to have a command run whenever a patch is to be recorded, such as translating line endings before recording patches. Using --no-prehook will disable running the command.

--run-prehook, --prompt-prehook

These options control prompting before running the prehook. See the posthook documentation above for details.

--ssh-cm, --no-ssh-cm

For commands which invoke ssh, darcs will normally multiplex ssh sessions over a single connection as long as your version of ssh has the ControlMaster feature from OpenSSH versions 3.9 and above. This option will avoid darcs trying to use this feature even if your ssh supports it.

--http-pipelining, --no-http-pipelining

When compiled with libcurl (version 7.18.0 and above), darcs can use HTTP pipelining. It is enabled by default for libcurl (version 7.19.1 and above). This option will make darcs enable or disable HTTP pipelining, overwriting default. Note that if HTTP pipelining is really used depends on the server.

--no-cache

Do not use patch caches.

--umask

By default, Darcs will use your current umask. The option --umask will cause Darcs to switch to a different umask before writing to the repository.

--dont-restrict-paths, --restrict-paths

By default darcs is only allowed to manage and modify files and directories contained inside the current repository and not being part of any darcs repository's meta data (including the current one). This is mainly for security, to protect you from spoofed patches modifying arbitrary files with sensitive data--say, in your home directory--or tampering with any repository's meta data to switch off this safety guard.

But sometimes you may want to manage a group of ``sub'' repositories' preference files with a global repository, or use darcs in some other advanced way. The best way is probably to put ALL dont-restrict-paths in _darcs/prefs/defaults. This turns off all sanity checking for file paths in patches.

Path checking can be temporarily turned on with --restrict-paths on the command line, when pulling or applying unknown patches.

--allow-unrelated-repos

By default darcs checks and warns user if repositories are unrelated when doing pull, push and send. This option makes darcs skip this check.

Options apart from darcs commands

--help, --overview

Calling darcs with just --help as an argument gives a brief summary of what commands are available. The --overview option gives a more technical summary of what the commands actually do.

--version, --exact-version

Calling darcs with the flag --version tells you the version of darcs you are using. Calling darcs with the flag --exact-version gives the precise version of darcs, even if that version doesn't correspond to a released version number. This is helpful with bug reports, especially when running with a ``latest'' version of darcs.

--commands

Similarly calling darcs with only --commands gives a simple list of available commands. This latter arrangement is primarily intended for the use of command-line autocompletion facilities, as are available in bash.

Getting help

darcs help

Without arguments, `darcs help' prints a categorized list of darcs commands and a short description of each one. With an extra argument, `darcs help foo' prints detailed help about the darcs command foo.

Usage: darcs help [OPTION]... [<DARCS_COMMAND> [DARCS_SUBCOMMAND]]

Options:

Display help about darcs and darcs commands.

Creating repositories

darcs initialize

The `darcs initialize' command turns the current directory into a Darcs repository. Any existing files and subdirectories become UNSAVED changes in the working tree: record them with `darcs add -r' and `darcs record'.

When converting a project to Darcs from some other VCS, translating the full revision history to native Darcs patches is recommended. (The Darcs wiki lists utilities for this.) Because Darcs is optimized for small patches, simply importing the latest revision as a single large patch can PERMANENTLY degrade Darcs performance in your repository by an order of magnitude.

This command creates the `_darcs' directory, which stores version control metadata. It also contains per-repository settings in _darcs/prefs/, which you can read about in the user manual.

In addition to the default darcs-2 format, there are two backwards-compatible formats for the _darcs directory. If all contributors to your project have darcs 2.0.0 or higher, use the default format.

If some contributors still run Darcs below 2.0.0, you need to use the `old-fashioned inventory' format for any repositories those contributors access. Because patches cannot be shared between darcs-2 and old-fashioned repositories, other project repos should use the intermediary `hashed' format.

Darcs will create a hashed repository by default when you `darcs get' a repository in old-fashioned inventory format. Once all contributors have upgraded to Darcs 2.0.0 or later, use `darcs convert' to convert the project to the darcs-2 format.

Initialize is commonly abbreviated to `init'.

Usage: darcs initialize [OPTION]...

Options:

--hashed

Some new features. Compatible with older repos

--darcs-2

All features. Related repos must use same format [DEFAULT]

--old-fashioned-inventory

Minimal features. What older repos use.

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Make the current directory a repository.

darcs get

Get creates a local copy of a repository. The optional second argument specifies a destination directory for the new copy; if omitted, it is inferred from the source location.

By default Darcs will copy every patch from the original repository. This means the copy is completely independent of the original; you can operate on the new repository even when the original is inaccessible. If you expect the original repository to remain accessible, you can use -lazy to avoid copying patches until they are needed (`copy on demand'). This is particularly useful when copying a remote repository with a long history that you don't care about.

The -lazy option isn't as useful for local copies, because Darcs will automatically use `hard linking' where possible. As well as saving time and space, you can move or delete the original repository without affecting a complete, hard-linked copy. Hard linking requires that the copy be on the same filesystem and the original repository, and that the filesystem support hard linking. This includes NTFS, HFS+ and all general-purpose Unix filesystems (such as ext3, UFS and ZFS). FAT does not support hard links.

Darcs get will not copy unrecorded changes to the source repository's working tree.

It is often desirable to make a copy of a repository that excludes some patches. For example, if releases are tagged then `darcs get -tag .' would make a copy of the repository as at the latest release.

An untagged repository state can still be identified unambiguously by a context file, as generated by `darcs changes -context'. Given the name of such a file, the -context option will create a repository that includes only the patches from that context. When a user reports a bug in an unreleased version of your project, the recommended way to find out exactly what version they were running is to have them include a context file in the bug report.

You can also make a copy of an untagged state using the -to-patch or -to-match options, which exclude patches `after' the first matching patch. Because these options treat the set of patches as an ordered sequence, you may get different results after reordering with `darcs optimize', so tagging is preferred.

If the source repository is in a legacy darcs-1 format and contains at least one checkpoint (see `darcs optimize'), the -partial option will create a partial repository. A partial repository discards history from before the checkpoint in order to reduce resource requirements. For modern darcs-2 repositories, -partial is a deprecated alias for the -lazy option.

A repository created by `darcs get' will be in the best available format: it will be able to exchange patches with the source repository, but will not be directly readable by Darcs binaries older than 2.0.0. Use the `-old-fashioned-inventory' option if the latter is required.

Usage: darcs get [OPTION]... <REPOSITORY> [<DIRECTORY>]

Options:

--repo-name DIRECTORY,--repodir DIRECTORY

path of output directory

--partial

get partial repository using checkpoint (old-fashioned format only)

--lazy

get patch files only as needed

--ephemeral

don't save patch files in the repository

--complete

get a complete copy of the repository

--to-match PATTERN

select changes up to a patch matching PATTERN

--to-patch REGEXP

select changes up to a patch matching REGEXP

-t --tag REGEXP

select tag matching REGEXP

--context FILENAME

version specified by the context in FILENAME

--set-default

set default repository [DEFAULT]

--no-set-default

don't set default repository

--set-scripts-executable

make scripts executable

--dont-set-scripts-executable

don't make scripts executable

--nolinks

do not link repository or pristine to sibling

--hashed

Convert darcs-1 format to hashed format

--old-fashioned-inventory

Convert from hashed to darcs-1 format

Advanced options:

--ssh-cm

use SSH ControlMaster feature

--no-ssh-cm

don't use SSH ControlMaster feature [DEFAULT]

--http-pipelining

enable HTTP pipelining

--no-http-pipelining

disable HTTP pipelining [DEFAULT]

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

Create a local copy of a repository.

darcs put

The `darcs put' command creates a copy of the current repository. It is currently very inefficient, so when creating local copies you should use `darcs get . x' instead of `darcs put x'.

Currently this command just uses `darcs init' to create the target repository, then `darcs push -all' to copy patches to it. Options passed to `darcs put' are passed to the init and/or push commands as appropriate. See those commands for an explanation of each option.

Usage: darcs put [OPTION]... <NEW REPOSITORY>

Options:

--to-match PATTERN

select changes up to a patch matching PATTERN

--to-patch REGEXP

select changes up to a patch matching REGEXP

-t --tag REGEXP

select tag matching REGEXP

--context FILENAME

version specified by the context in FILENAME

--set-scripts-executable

make scripts executable

--dont-set-scripts-executable

don't make scripts executable

--hashed

Convert darcs-1 format to hashed format

--old-fashioned-inventory

Convert from hashed to darcs-1 format

--set-default

set default repository [DEFAULT]

--no-set-default

don't set default repository

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--apply-as USERNAME

apply patch as another user using sudo

--apply-as-myself

don't use sudo to apply as another user [DEFAULT]

--ssh-cm

use SSH ControlMaster feature

--no-ssh-cm

don't use SSH ControlMaster feature [DEFAULT]

--http-pipelining

enable HTTP pipelining

--no-http-pipelining

disable HTTP pipelining [DEFAULT]

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

Makes a copy of the repository

Modifying the contents of a repository

darcs add

Generally a repository contains both files that should be version controlled (such as source code) and files that Darcs should ignore (such as executables compiled from the source code). The `darcs add' command is used to tell Darcs which files to version control.

When an existing project is first imported into a Darcs repository, it is common to run `darcs add -r *' or `darcs record -l' to add all initial source files into darcs.

Adding symbolic links (symlinks) is not supported.

Darcs will ignore all files and folders that look `boring'. The -boring option overrides this behaviour.

Darcs will not add file if another file in the same folder has the same name, except for case. The -case-ok option overrides this behaviour. Windows and OS X usually use filesystems that do not allow files a folder to have the same name except for case (for example, `ReadMe' and `README'). If -case-ok is used, the repository might be unusable on those systems!

The -date-trick option allows you to enable an experimental trick to make add conflicts, in which two users each add a file or directory with the same name, less problematic. While this trick is completely safe, it is not clear to what extent it is beneficial.

Usage: darcs add [OPTION]... <FILE or DIRECTORY> ...

Options:

--boring

don't skip boring files

--case-ok

don't refuse to add files differing only in case

--reserved-ok

don't refuse to add files with Windows-reserved names

-r --recursive

add contents of subdirectories

--not-recursive

don't add contents of subdirectories

--date-trick

add files with date appended to avoid conflict [EXPERIMENTAL]

--no-date-trick

don't use experimental date appending trick [DEFAULT]

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

--dry-run

don't actually take the action

Advanced options:

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

Add one or more new files or directories.

darcs remove

The `darcs remove' command exists primarily for symmetry with `darcs add', as the normal way to remove a file from version control is simply to delete it from the working tree. This command is only useful in the unusual case where one wants to record a removal patch WITHOUT deleting the copy in the working tree (which can be re-added).

Note that applying a removal patch to a repository (e.g. by pulling the patch) will ALWAYS affect the working tree of that repository.

Usage: darcs remove [OPTION]... <FILE or DIRECTORY> ...

Options:

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

Remove files from version control.

darcs move

Darcs cannot reliably distinguish between a file being deleted and a new one added, and a file being moved. Therefore Darcs always assumes the former, and provides the `darcs mv' command to let Darcs know when you want the latter. This command will also move the file in the working tree (unlike `darcs remove').

Darcs will not rename a file if another file in the same folder has the same name, except for case. The -case-ok option overrides this behaviour. Windows and OS X usually use filesystems that do not allow files a folder to have the same name except for case (for example, `ReadMe' and `README'). If -case-ok is used, the repository might be unusable on those systems!

Usage: darcs move [OPTION]... <SOURCE> ... <DESTINATION>

Options:

--case-ok

don't refuse to add files differing only in case

--reserved-ok

don't refuse to add files with Windows-reserved names

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

Move or rename files.

darcs replace

In addition to line-based patches, Darcs supports a limited form of lexical substitution. Files are treated as sequences of words, and each occurrence of the old word is replaced by the new word. This is intended to provide a clean way to rename a function or variable. Such renamings typically affect lines all through the source code, so a traditional line-based patch would be very likely to conflict with other branches, requiring manual merging.

Files are tokenized according to one simple rule: words are strings of valid token characters, and everything between them (punctuation and whitespace) is discarded.

The tokenizer treats files as byte strings, so it is not possible for -token-chars to include multi-byte characters, such as the non-ASCII parts of UTF-8. Similarly, trying to replace a `high-bit' character from a unibyte encoding will also result in replacement of the same byte in files with different encodings. For example, an acute a from ISO 8859-1 will also match an alpha from ISO 8859-7.

By default, valid token characters are letters, numbers and the underscore (i.e. [A-Za-z0-9_]). However if the old and/or new token contains either a hyphen or period, BOTH hyphen and period are treated as valid by default (i.e. [A-Za-z0-9_.-]).

The set of valid characters can be customized using the -token-chars option. The argument must be surrounded by square brackets. If a hyphen occurs between two characters in the set, it is treated as a set range. For example, in most locales [A-Z] denotes all uppercase letters. If the first character is a caret, valid tokens are taken to be the complement of the remaining characters. For example, [^ $\backslash$ n $\backslash$ t] declares all characters except the space, tab and newline as valid within a word. Unlike the tr(1) and grep(1) utilities, character classes (such as [[:alnum:]]) are NOT supported.

If you choose to use -token-chars, you are STRONGLY encouraged to do so consistently. The consequences of using multiple replace patches with different -token-chars arguments on the same file are not well tested nor well understood.

By default Darcs will refuse to perform a replacement if the new token is already in use, because the replacements would be not be distinguishable from the existing tokens. This behaviour can be overridden by supplying the -force option, but an attempt to `darcs rollback' the resulting patch will affect these existing tokens.

Usage: darcs replace [OPTION]... <OLD> <NEW> <FILE> ...

Options:

--token-chars "[CHARS]"

define token to contain these characters

-f --force

proceed with replace even if 'new' token already exists

--no-force

don't force the replace if it looks scary

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--ignore-times

don't trust the file modification times

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

Substitute one word for another. There is a potentially confusing difference, however, when a replace is used to make another replace possible:

$ darcs replace newtoken aaack ./foo.c
$ darcs replace oldtoken newtoken ./foo.c
$ darcs record

will be valid, even if newtoken and oldtoken are both present in the recorded version of foo.c, while the sequence

$ [manually edit foo.c replacing newtoken with aaack]
$ darcs replace oldtoken newtoken ./foo.c

will fail because ``newtoken'' still exists in the recorded version of foo.c. The reason for the difference is that when recording, a ``replace'' patch always is recorded before any manual changes, which is usually what you want, since often you will introduce new occurrences of the ``newtoken'' in your manual changes. In contrast, multiple ``replace'' changes are recorded in the order in which they were made.

Working with changes

darcs record

Record is used to name a set of changes and record the patch to the repository.

Usage: darcs record [OPTION]... [FILE or DIRECTORY]...

Options:

-m --patch-name PATCHNAME

name of patch

-A --author EMAIL

specify author id

--no-test

don't run the test script

--test

run the test script

--leave-test-directory

don't remove the test directory

--remove-test-directory

remove the test directory

-a --all

answer yes to all patches

--pipe

ask user interactively for the patch metadata

-i --interactive

prompt user interactively

--ask-deps

ask for extra dependencies

--no-ask-deps

don't ask for extra dependencies

--edit-long-comment

edit the long comment by default

--skip-long-comment

don't give a long comment

--prompt-long-comment

prompt for whether to edit the long comment

-l --look-for-adds

look for (non-boring) files that could be added

--dont-look-for-adds

don't look for any files that could be added [DEFAULT]

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--logfile FILE

give patch name and comment in file

--delete-logfile

delete the logfile when done

--compress

create compressed patches

--dont-compress

don't create compressed patches

--ignore-times

don't trust the file modification times

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

--set-scripts-executable

make scripts executable

--dont-set-scripts-executable

don't make scripts executable

Save changes in the working copy to the repository as a patch.

If you provide one or more files or directories as additional arguments to record, you will only be prompted to changes in those files or directories. Each patch is given a name, which typically would consist of a brief description of the changes. This name is later used to describe the patch. The name must fit on one line (i.e. cannot have any embedded newlines). If you have more to say, stick it in the log.

The patch is also flagged with the author of the change, taken by default from the DARCS_EMAIL environment variable, and if that doesn't exist, from the EMAIL environment variable. The date on which the patch was recorded is also included. Currently there is no provision for keeping track of when a patch enters a given repository. Finally, each changeset should have a full log (which may be empty). This log is for detailed notes which are too lengthy to fit in the name. If you answer that you do want to create a comment file, darcs will open an editor so that you can enter the comment in. The choice of editor proceeds as follows. If one of the $DARCS_EDITOR, $VISUAL or $EDITOR environment variables is defined, its value is used (with precedence proceeding in the order listed). If not, ``vi'', ``emacs'', ``emacs -nw'' and ``nano'' are tried in that order.

--logfile

If you wish, you may specify the patch name and log using the --logfile flag. If you do so, the first line of the specified file will be taken to be the patch name, and the remainder will be the ``long comment''. This feature can be especially handy if you have a test that fails several times on the record (thus aborting the record), so you don't have to type in the long comment multiple times. The file's contents will override the --patch-name option.

--ask-deps

Each patch may depend on any number of previous patches. If you choose to make your patch depend on a previous patch, that patch is required to be applied before your patch can be applied to a repository. This can be used, for example, if a piece of code requires a function to be defined, which was defined in an earlier patch.

If you want to manually define any dependencies for your patch, you can use the --ask-deps flag, and darcs will ask you for the patch's dependencies.

It is possible to record a patch which has no actual changes but which has specific dependencies. This type of patch can be thought of as a ``partial tag''. The darcs tag command will record a patch with no actual changes but which depends on the entire current inventory of the repository. The darcs record --ask-deps with no selected changes will record a patch that depends on only those patches selected via the --ask-deps operation, resulting in a patch which describes a set of patches; the presence of this primary patch in a repository implies the presence of (at least) the depended-upon patches.

--no-test, --test

If you configure darcs to run a test suite, darcs will run this test on the recorded repository to make sure it is valid. Darcs first creates a pristine copy of the source tree (in a temporary directory), then it runs the test, using its return value to decide if the record is valid. If it is not valid, the record will be aborted. This is a handy way to avoid making stupid mistakes like forgetting to `darcs add' a new file. It also can be tediously slow, so there is an option (--no-test) to skip the test.

--set-scripts-executable

If you pass --set-scripts-executable to darcs record, darcs will set scripts executable in the test directory before running the test.

--pipe

If you run record with the --pipe option, you will be prompted for the patch date, author, and the long comment. The long comment will extend until the end of file or stdin is reached (ctrl-D on Unixy systems, ctrl-Z on systems running a Microsoft OS).

This interface is intended for scripting darcs, in particular for writing repository conversion scripts. The prompts are intended mostly as a useful guide (since scripts won't need them), to help you understand the format in which to provide the input. Here's an example of what the --pipe prompts look like:

 What is the date? Mon Nov 15 13:38:01 EST 2004
 Who is the author? David Roundy
 What is the log? One or more comment lines

--interactive

By default, record works interactively. Probably the only thing you need to know about using this is that you can press ? at the prompt to be shown a list of the rest of the options and what they do. The rest should be clear from there. Here's a ``screenshot'' to demonstrate:

hunk ./hello.pl +2
+#!/usr/bin/perl
+print "Hello World!\n";
Shall I record this patch? (2/2) [ynWsfqadjk], or ? for help: ?
How to use record...
y: record this patch
n: don't record it
w: wait and decide later, defaulting to no

s: don't record the rest of the changes to this file
f: record the rest of the changes to this file

d: record selected patches
a: record all the remaining patches
q: cancel record

j: skip to next patch
k: back up to previous patch
h or ?: show this help

<Space>: accept the current default (which is capitalized)

What you can't see in that ``screenshot'' is that darcs will also try to use color in your terminal to make the output even easier to read.

darcs pull

Pull is used to bring changes made in another repository into the current repository (that is, either the one in the current directory, or the one specified with the -repodir option). Pull allows you to bring over all or some of the patches that are in that repository but not in this one. Pull accepts arguments, which are URLs from which to pull, and when called without an argument, pull will use the repository from which you have most recently either pushed or pulled.

Usage: darcs pull [OPTION]... [REPOSITORY]...

Options:

--matches PATTERN

select patches matching PATTERN

-p --patches REGEXP

select patches matching REGEXP

-t --tags REGEXP

select tags matching REGEXP

-a --all

answer yes to all patches

-i --interactive

prompt user interactively

--mark-conflicts

mark conflicts [DEFAULT]

--allow-conflicts

allow conflicts, but don't mark them

--dont-allow-conflicts

fail on patches that create conflicts

--external-merge COMMAND

use external tool to merge conflicts

--test

run the test script

--no-test

don't run the test script

--dry-run

don't actually take the action

--xml-output

generate XML formatted output

-s --summary

summarize changes

--no-summary

don't summarize changes

--no-deps

don't automatically fulfill dependencies

--dont-prompt-for-dependencies

don't ask about patches that are depended on by matched patches (with -match or -patch)

--prompt-for-dependencies

prompt about patches that are depended on by matched patches [DEFAULT]

--set-default

set default repository [DEFAULT]

--no-set-default

don't set default repository

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

--ignore-unrelated-repos

do not check if repositories are unrelated

Advanced options:

--intersection

take intersection of all repositories

--union

take union of all repositories [DEFAULT]

--complement

take complement of repositories (in order listed)

--compress

create compressed patches

--dont-compress

don't create compressed patches

--nolinks

do not link repository or pristine to sibling

--ignore-times

don't trust the file modification times

--remote-repo URL

specify the remote repository URL to work with

--set-scripts-executable

make scripts executable

--dont-set-scripts-executable

don't make scripts executable

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

--restrict-paths

don't allow darcs to touch external files or repo metadata

--dont-restrict-paths

allow darcs to modify any file or directory (unsafe)

--ssh-cm

use SSH ControlMaster feature

--no-ssh-cm

don't use SSH ControlMaster feature [DEFAULT]

--http-pipelining

enable HTTP pipelining

--no-http-pipelining

disable HTTP pipelining [DEFAULT]

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

Copy and apply patches from another repository to this one.

--intersection, --union [DEFAULT], --complement

If you provide more than one repository as an argument to pull, darcs' behavior is determined by the presence of the --complement, --intersection, and --union flags.

The default (--union) behavior is to pull any patches that are in any of the specified repositories ( $R_1 \bigcup R_2 \bigcup R_3 \ldots$ ).
If you instead specify the --intersection flag, darcs will only pull those patches which are present in all source repositories ( $R_1 \bigcap R_2 \bigcap R_3 \ldots$ ).
If you specify the --complement flag, darcs will only pull elements in the first repository that do not exist in any of the remaining repositories^6.4 ( $R_1 \backslash (R_2 \bigcup R_3 \bigcup \ldots$ )).

--external-merge

You can use an external interactive merge tool to resolve conflicts with the flag --external-merge. For more details see subsection .

--matches, --patches, --tags, --no-deps

The --patches, --matches, --tags, and --no-deps options can be used to select which patches to pull, as described in subsection .

--no-test, --test

If you specify the --test option, pull will run the test (if a test exists) on a scratch copy of the repository contents prior to actually performing the pull. If the test fails, the pull will be aborted.

--verbose

Adding the --verbose option causes another section to appear in the output which also displays a summary of patches that you have and the remote repository lacks. Thus, the following syntax can be used to show you all the patch differences between two repositories:

darcs pull --dry-run --verbose

darcs push

Push is the opposite of pull. Push allows you to copy changes from the current repository into another repository.

Usage: darcs push [OPTION]... [REPOSITORY]

Options:

Advanced options:

--apply-as USERNAME

apply patch as another user using sudo

--apply-as-myself

don't use sudo to apply as another user [DEFAULT]

--nolinks

do not link repository or pristine to sibling

--remote-repo URL

specify the remote repository URL to work with

--ssh-cm

use SSH ControlMaster feature

--no-ssh-cm

don't use SSH ControlMaster feature [DEFAULT]

--http-pipelining

enable HTTP pipelining

--no-http-pipelining

disable HTTP pipelining [DEFAULT]

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

Copy and apply patches from this repository to another one.

For obvious reasons, you can only push to repositories to which you have write access. In addition, you can only push to repos that you access either on the local file system or with ssh. In order to apply with ssh, darcs must also be installed on the remote computer. The command invoked to run ssh may be configured by the DARCS_SSH environment variable (see subsection ). The command invoked via ssh is always darcs, i.e. the darcs executable must be in the default path on the remote machine.

Push works by creating a patch bundle, and then running darcs apply in the target repository using that patch bundle. This means that the default options for apply in the target repository (such as, for example, --test) will affect the behavior of push. This also means that push is somewhat less efficient than pull.

When you receive an error message such as

bash: darcs: command not found

then this means that the darcs on the remote machine could not be started. Make sure that the darcs executable is called darcs and is found in the default path. The default path can be different in interactive and in non-interactive shells. Say

ssh login@remote.machine darcs

to try whether the remote darcs can be found, or

ssh login@remote.machine 'echo $PATH'

(note the single quotes) to check the default path.

--apply-as

If you give the --apply-as flag, darcs will use sudo to apply the changes as a different user. This can be useful if you want to set up a system where several users can modify the same repository, but you don't want to allow them full write access. This isn't secure against skilled malicious attackers, but at least can protect your repository from clumsy, inept or lazy users.

--matches, --patches, --tags, --no-deps

The --patches, --matches, --tags, and --no-deps options can be used to select which patches to push, as described in subsection .

When there are conflicts, the behavior of push is determined by the default flags to apply in the target repository. Most commonly, for pushed-to repositories, you'd like to have --dont-allow-conflicts as a default option to apply (by default, it is already the default...). If this is the case, when there are conflicts on push, darcs will fail with an error message. You can then resolve by pulling the conflicting patch, recording a resolution and then pushing the resolution together with the conflicting patch.

Darcs does not have an explicit way to tell you which patch conflicted, only the file name. You may want to pull all the patches from the remote repository just to be sure. If you don't want to do this in your working directory, you can create another darcs working directory for this purpose.

If you want, you could set the target repository to use --allow-conflicts. In this case conflicting patches will be applied, but the conflicts will not be marked in the working directory.

If, on the other hand, you have --mark-conflicts specified as a default flag for apply in the target repository, when there is a conflict, it will be marked in the working directory of the target repository. In this case, you should resolve the conflict in the target repository itself.

darcs send

Send is used to prepare a bundle of patches that can be applied to a target repository. Send accepts the URL of the repository as an argument. When called without an argument, send will use the most recent repository that was either pushed to, pulled from or sent to. By default, the patch bundle is sent by email, although you may save it to a file.

Usage: darcs send [OPTION]... [REPOSITORY]

Options:

--matches PATTERN

select patches matching PATTERN

-p --patches REGEXP

select patches matching REGEXP

-t --tags REGEXP

select tags matching REGEXP

--no-deps

don't automatically fulfill dependencies

--dont-prompt-for-dependencies

don't ask about patches that are depended on by matched patches (with -match or -patch)

--prompt-for-dependencies

prompt about patches that are depended on by matched patches [DEFAULT]

-a --all

answer yes to all patches

-i --interactive

prompt user interactively

--from EMAIL

specify email address

-A --author EMAIL

specify author id

--to EMAIL

specify destination email

--cc EMAIL

mail results to additional EMAIL(s). Requires -reply

--subject SUBJECT

specify mail subject

--in-reply-to EMAIL

specify in-reply-to header

-o --output FILE

specify output filename

-O --output-auto-name[=DIRECTORY]

output to automatically named file in DIRECTORY, default: current directory

--sign

sign the patch with your gpg key

--sign-as KEYID

sign the patch with a given keyid

--sign-ssl IDFILE

sign the patch using openssl with a given private key

--dont-sign

don't sign the patch

--dry-run

don't actually take the action

--xml-output

generate XML formatted output

-s --summary

summarize changes

--no-summary

don't summarize changes

--edit-description

edit the patch bundle description

--dont-edit-description

don't edit the patch bundle description

--set-default

set default repository [DEFAULT]

--no-set-default

don't set default repository

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

--sendmail-command COMMAND

specify sendmail command

--ignore-unrelated-repos

do not check if repositories are unrelated

Advanced options:

--logfile FILE

give patch name and comment in file

--delete-logfile

delete the logfile when done

--remote-repo URL

specify the remote repository URL to work with

--context FILENAME

send to context stored in FILENAME

--ssh-cm

use SSH ControlMaster feature

--no-ssh-cm

don't use SSH ControlMaster feature [DEFAULT]

--http-pipelining

enable HTTP pipelining

--no-http-pipelining

disable HTTP pipelining [DEFAULT]

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

Send by email a bundle of one or more patches.

Do not confuse the --author options with the return address that darcs send will set for your patch bundle.

For example, if you have two email addresses A and B:

: If you use --author A but your machine is configured to send mail from address B by default, then the return address on your message will be B.
: If you use --from A and your mail client supports setting the From: address arbitrarily (some non-Unix-like mail clients, especially, may not support this), then the return address will be A; if it does not support this, then the return address will be B.
: If you supply neither --from nor --author, then the return address will be B.

In addition, unless you specify the sendmail command with --sendmail-command, darcs sends email using the default email command on your computer. This default command is determined by the configure script. Thus, on some non-Unix-like OSes, --from is likely to not work at all.

--output, --to, --cc

The --output, --output-auto-name, and --to flags determine what darcs does with the patch bundle after creating it. If you provide an --output argument, the patch bundle is saved to that file. If you specify --output-auto-name, the patch bundle is saved to a file with an automatically generated name. If you give one or more --to arguments, the bundle of patches is sent to those locations. The locations may either be email addresses or urls that the patch should be submitted to via HTTP.

If you don't provide any of these options, darcs will look at the contents of the _darcs/prefs/email file in the target repository (if it exists), and send the patch by email to that address. In this case, you may use the --cc option to specify additional recipients without overriding the default repository email address.

If _darcs/prefs/post exists in the target repository, darcs will upload to the URL contained in that file, which may either be a mailto: URL, or an http:// URL. In the latter case, the patch is posted to that URL.

If there is no email address associated with the repository, darcs will prompt you for an email address.

--subject

Use the --subject flag to set the subject of the e-mail to be sent. If you don't provide a subject on the command line, darcs will make one up based on names of the patches in the patch bundle.

--in-reply-to

Use the --in-reply-to flag to set the In-Reply-To and References headers of the e-mail to be sent. By default no additional headers are included so e-mail will not be treated as reply by mail readers.

--matches, --patches, --tags, --no-deps

The --patches, --matches, --tags, and --no-deps options can be used to select which patches to send, as described in subsection .

--edit-description

If you want to include a description or explanation along with the bundle of patches, you need to specify the --edit-description flag, which will cause darcs to open up an editor with which you can compose a message to go along with your patches.

--sendmail-command

If you want to use a command different from the default one for sending email, you need to specify a command line with the --sendmail-command option. The command line can contain some format specifiers which are replaced by the actual values. Accepted format specifiers are %s for subject, %t for to, %c for cc, %b for the body of the mail, %f for from, %a for the patch bundle and the same specifiers in uppercase for the URL-encoded values. Additionally you can add %< to the end of the command line if the command expects the complete email message on standard input. E.g. the command lines for evolution and msmtp look like this:

evolution "mailto:%T?subject=%S&attach=%A&cc=%C&body=%B"
msmtp -t %<

darcs apply

Apply is used to apply a bundle of patches to this repository. Such a bundle may be created using send.

Usage: darcs apply [OPTION]... <PATCHFILE>

Options:

--verify PUBRING

verify that the patch was signed by a key in PUBRING

--verify-ssl KEYS

verify using openSSL with authorized keys from file KEYS

--no-verify

don't verify patch signature

-a --all

answer yes to all patches

-i --interactive

prompt user interactively

--dry-run

don't actually take the action

--xml-output

generate XML formatted output

--mark-conflicts

mark conflicts

--allow-conflicts

allow conflicts, but don't mark them

--no-resolve-conflicts

equivalent to -dont-allow-conflicts, for backwards compatibility

--dont-allow-conflicts

fail on patches that create conflicts [DEFAULT]

--external-merge COMMAND

use external tool to merge conflicts

--no-test

don't run the test script

--test

run the test script

--leave-test-directory

don't remove the test directory

--remove-test-directory

remove the test directory

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--reply FROM

reply to email-based patch using FROM address

--cc EMAIL

mail results to additional EMAIL(s). Requires -reply

--happy-forwarding

forward unsigned messages without extra header

--sendmail-command COMMAND

specify sendmail command

--ignore-times

don't trust the file modification times

--compress

create compressed patches

--dont-compress

don't create compressed patches

--set-scripts-executable

make scripts executable

--dont-set-scripts-executable

don't make scripts executable

--umask UMASK

specify umask to use when writing

--restrict-paths

don't allow darcs to touch external files or repo metadata

--dont-restrict-paths

allow darcs to modify any file or directory (unsafe)

Apply a patch bundle created by `darcs send'.

Darcs apply accepts a single argument, which is the name of the patch file to be applied. If you omit this argument, the patch is read from standard input. Darcs also interprets an argument of `' to mean it should read the file from standard input. This allows you to use apply with a pipe from your email program, for example.

--verify

If you specify the --verify PUBRING option, darcs will check that the patch was GPG-signed by a key which is in PUBRING and will refuse to apply the patch otherwise.

--cc, --reply

If you give the --reply FROM option to darcs apply, it will send the results of the application to the sender of the patch. This only works if the patch is in the form of email with its headers intact, so that darcs can actually know the origin of the patch. The reply email will indicate whether or not the patch was successfully applied. The FROM flag is the email address that will be used as the ``from'' address when replying. If the darcs apply is being done automatically, it is important that this address not be the same as the address at which the patch was received, in order to avoid automatic email loops.

If you want to also send the apply email to another address (for example, to create something like a ``commits'' mailing list), you can use the --cc option to specify additional recipients. Note that the --cc option requires the --reply option, which provides the ``From'' address.

The --reply feature of apply is intended primarily for two uses. When used by itself, it is handy for when you want to apply patches sent to you by other developers so that they will know when their patch has been applied. For example, in my .muttrc (the config file for my mailer) I have:

macro pager A "<pipe-entry>darcs apply --verbose \
        --reply droundy@abridgegame.org --repodir ~/darcs

which allows me to apply a patch to darcs directly from my mailer, with the originator of that patch being sent a confirmation when the patch is successfully applied. NOTE: In an attempt to make sure no one else can read your email, mutt seems to set the umask such that patches created with the above macro are not world-readable, so use it with care.

When used in combination with the --verify option, the --reply option allows for a nice pushable repository. When these two options are used together, any patches that don't pass the verify will be forwarded to the FROM address of the --reply option. This allows you to set up a repository so that anyone who is authorized can push to it and have it automatically applied, but if a stranger pushes to it, the patch will be forwarded to you. Please (for your own sake!) be certain that the --reply FROM address is different from the one used to send patches to a pushable repository, since otherwise an unsigned patch will be forwarded to the repository in an infinite loop.

If you use darcs apply --verify PUBRING --reply to create a pushable repository by applying patches automatically as they are received by email, you will also want to use the --dont-allow-conflicts option.

--dont-allow-conflicts

The --dont-allow-conflicts flag causes apply to fail when applying a patch would cause conflicts. This flag is recommended on repositories which will be pushed to or sent to.

--allow-conflicts

--allow-conflicts will allow conflicts, but will keep the local and recorded versions in sync on the repository. This means the conflict will exist in both locations until it is resolved.

--mark-conflicts

--mark-conflicts will add conflict markers to illustrate the the conflict.

--external-merge

You can use an external interactive merge tool to resolve conflicts with the flag --external-merge. For more details see subsection .

--all, --interactive

If you provide the --interactive flag, darcs will ask you for each change in the patch bundle whether or not you wish to apply that change. The opposite is the --all flag, which can be used to override an interactive which might be set in your ``defaults'' file.

--sendmail-command

If you want to use a command different from the default one for sending mail, you need to specify a command line with the --sendmail-command option. The command line can contain the format specifier %t for to and you can add %< to the end of the command line if the command expects the complete mail on standard input. For example, the command line for msmtp looks like this:

msmtp -t %<

--no-test, --test

If you specify the --test option, apply will run the test (if a test exists) prior to applying the patch. If the test fails, the patch is not applied. In this case, if the --reply option was used, the results of the test are sent in the reply email. You can also specify the --no-test option, which will override the --test option, and prevent the test from being run. This is helpful when setting up a pushable repository, to keep users from running code.

Seeing what you've done

darcs whatsnew

The `darcs whatsnew' command lists unrecorded changes to the working tree. If you specify a set of files and directories, only unrecorded changes to those files and directories are listed.

With the -summary option, the changes are condensed to one line per file, with mnemonics to indicate the nature and extent of the change. The -look-for-adds option causes candidates for `darcs add' to be included in the summary output.

By default, `darcs whatsnew' uses Darcs' internal format for changes. To see some context (unchanged lines) around each change, use the -unified option. To view changes in conventional `diff' format, use the `darcs diff' comand; but note that `darcs whatsnew' is faster.

This command exits unsuccessfully (returns a non-zero exit status) if there are no unrecorded changes.

Usage: darcs whatsnew [OPTION]... [FILE or DIRECTORY]...

Options:

-s --summary

summarize changes

--no-summary

don't summarize changes

-u --unified

output patch in a darcs-specific format similar to diff -u

-l --look-for-adds

look for (non-boring) files that could be added

--dont-look-for-adds

don't look for any files that could be added [DEFAULT]

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

Advanced options:

--ignore-times

don't trust the file modification times

--boring

don't skip boring files

--no-cache

don't use patch caches

List unrecorded changes in the working tree.

darcs changes

Changes gives a changelog-style summary of the repository history, including options for altering how the patches are selected and displayed.

Usage: darcs changes [OPTION]... [FILE or DIRECTORY]...

Options:

--to-match PATTERN

select changes up to a patch matching PATTERN

--to-patch REGEXP

select changes up to a patch matching REGEXP

--to-tag REGEXP

select changes up to a tag matching REGEXP

--from-match PATTERN

select changes starting with a patch matching PATTERN

--from-patch REGEXP

select changes starting with a patch matching REGEXP

--from-tag REGEXP

select changes starting with a tag matching REGEXP

--last NUMBER

select the last NUMBER patches

-n --index N-M

select a range of patches

--matches PATTERN

select patches matching PATTERN

-p --patches REGEXP

select patches matching REGEXP

-t --tags REGEXP

select tags matching REGEXP

--max-count NUMBER

return only NUMBER results

--only-to-files

show only changes to specified files

--context

give output suitable for get -context

--xml-output

generate XML formatted output

--human-readable

give human-readable output

--number

number the changes

--count

output count of changes

-s --summary

summarize changes

--no-summary

don't summarize changes

--reverse

show changes in reverse order

--repo URL

specify the repository URL

--repodir DIRECTORY

specify the repository directory in which to run

-a --all

answer yes to all patches

-i --interactive

prompt user interactively

Advanced options: