1DARCS(1) General Commands Manual DARCS(1)
2
6 darcs - an advanced revision control system
7
9 darcs command <arguments|[options]>...
10 Where the commands and their respective arguments are
12 darcs help [<darcs_command> [darcs_subcommand]]
14 darcs add <file|directory> ...
15 darcs remove <file|directory> ...
16 darcs move <source> ... <destination>
17 darcs replace <old> <new> <file> ...
18 darcs revert [file|directory]...
19 darcs unrevert
20 darcs whatsnew [file|directory]...
21 darcs record [file|directory]...
22 darcs unrecord
23 darcs amend-record [file|directory]...
24 darcs mark-conflicts
25 darcs tag [tagname]
26 darcs setpref <pref> <value>
27 darcs diff [file|directory]...
28 darcs changes [file|directory]...
29 darcs annotate [file|directory]...
30 darcs dist
31 darcs trackdown [[initialization] command]
32 darcs show contents [file]...
33 darcs show files [file|directory]...
34 darcs show index
35 darcs show pristine
36 darcs show repo
37 darcs show authors
38 darcs show tags
39 darcs pull [repository]...
40 darcs obliterate
41 darcs rollback [file|directory]...
42 darcs push [repository]
43 darcs send [repository]
44 darcs apply <patchfile>
45 darcs get <repository> [<directory>]
46 darcs put <new repository>
47 darcs initialize
48 darcs optimize
49 darcs check
50 darcs repair
51 darcs convert <source> [<destination>]
52
55 Darcs is a free, open source revision control system. It is:
56 · Distributed: Every user has access to the full command set, removing
58 boundaries between server and client or committer and non‐commit‐
59 ters.
60 · Interactive: Darcs is easy to learn and efficient to use because it
62 asks you questions in response to simple commands, giving you
63 choices in your work flow. You can choose to record one change in a
64 file, while ignoring another. As you update from upstream, you can
65 review each patch name, even the full `diff' for interesting
66 patches.
67 · Smart: Originally developed by physicist David Roundy, darcs is
69 based on a unique algebra of patches. This smartness lets you
70 respond to changing demands in ways that would otherwise not be pos‐
71 sible. Learn more about spontaneous branches with darcs.
72
74 Different options are accepted by different Darcs commands. Each com‐
75 mand's most important options are listed in the COMMANDS section. For
76 a full list of all options accepted by a particular command, run `darcs
77 command --help'.
78 Selecting Patches:
80 The --patches option yields patches with names matching an `extended'
81 regular expression. See regex(7) for details. The --matches option
82 yields patches that match a logical (Boolean) expression: one or more
83 primitive expressions combined by grouping (parentheses) and the com‐
84 plement (not), conjunction (and) and disjunction (or) operators. The C
85 notation for logic operators (!, && and ||) can also be used.
86 --patches=regex is a synonym for --matches='name regex'
88 --from-patch and --to-patch are synonyms for --from-match='name... and
89 --to-match='name...
90 --from-patch and --to-match can be unproblematically combined:
91 darcs changes --from-patch='html.*documentation' --to-match='date
92 20040212'
93 The following primitive Boolean expressions are supported:
95 exact - check a literal string against the patch name.
96 name - check a regular expression against the patch name.
97 author - check a regular expression against the author name.
98 hunk - check a regular expression against the contents of a hunk
99 patch.
100 hash - match the darcs hash for a patch.
101 date - match the patch date.
102 touch - match file paths for a patch.
103 Here are some examples:
105 darcs annotate --summary --match 'exact "Resolve issue17: use dynamic
106 memory allocation."'
107 darcs annotate --summary --match 'name issue17'
108 darcs annotate --summary --match 'name "^[Rr]esolve issue17\>"'
109 darcs annotate --summary --match 'author "David Roundy"'
110 darcs annotate --summary --match 'author droundy'
111 darcs annotate --summary --match 'author droundy@darcs.net'
112 darcs annotate --summary --match 'hunk foo = 2'
113 darcs annotate --summary --match 'hunk ^instance .* Foo where$'
114 darcs annotate --summary --match 'hash
115 20040403105958-53a90-c719567e92c3b0ab9eddd5290b705712b8b918ef'
116 darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "2006-04-02 22:41"'
117 darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "tea time yesterday"'
118 darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch src/foo.c'
119 darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch src/'
120 darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch "src/*.(c|h)"'
121
124 darcs help [<darcs_command> [darcs_subcommand]]
125 Without arguments, `darcs help' prints a categorized list of darcs
126 commands and a short description of each one. With an extra argu‐
127 ment, `darcs help foo' prints detailed help about the darcs command
128 foo.
129 Changing and querying the working copy:
132 darcs add <file|directory> ...
133 Generally a repository contains both files that should be version
134 controlled (such as source code) and files that Darcs should ignore
135 (such as executables compiled from the source code). The `darcs
136 add' command is used to tell Darcs which files to version control.
137 When an existing project is first imported into a Darcs repository,
139 it is common to run `darcs add -r *' or `darcs record -l' to add
140 all initial source files into darcs.
141 Adding symbolic links (symlinks) is not supported.
143 Darcs will ignore all files and folders that look `boring'. The
145 --boring option overrides this behaviour.
146 Darcs will not add file if another file in the same folder has the
148 same name, except for case. The --case-ok option overrides this
149 behaviour. Windows and OS X usually use filesystems that do not
150 allow files a folder to have the same name except for case (for
151 example, `ReadMe' and `README'). If --case-ok is used, the reposi‐
152 tory might be unusable on those systems!
153 The --date-trick option allows you to enable an experimental trick
155 to make add conflicts, in which two users each add a file or direc‐
156 tory with the same name, less problematic. While this trick is
157 completely safe, it is not clear to what extent it is beneficial.
158 darcs remove <file|directory> ...
160 The `darcs remove' command exists primarily for symmetry with
161 `darcs add', as the normal way to remove a file from version con‐
162 trol is simply to delete it from the working tree. This command is
163 only useful in the unusual case where one wants to record a removal
164 patch WITHOUT deleting the copy in the working tree (which can be
165 re-added).
166 Note that applying a removal patch to a repository (e.g. by pulling
168 the patch) will ALWAYS affect the working tree of that repository.
169 darcs move <source> ... <destination>
171 Darcs cannot reliably distinguish between a file being deleted and
172 a new one added, and a file being moved. Therefore Darcs always
173 assumes the former, and provides the `darcs mv' command to let
174 Darcs know when you want the latter. This command will also move
175 the file in the working tree (unlike `darcs remove'), unless it has
176 already been moved.
177 Darcs will not rename a file if another file in the same folder has
179 the same name, except for case. The --case-ok option overrides
180 this behaviour. Windows and OS X usually use filesystems that do
181 not allow files a folder to have the same name except for case (for
182 example, `ReadMe' and `README'). If --case-ok is used, the reposi‐
183 tory might be unusable on those systems!
184 darcs replace <old> <new> <file> ...
186 In addition to line-based patches, Darcs supports a limited form of
187 lexical substitution. Files are treated as sequences of words, and
188 each occurrence of the old word is replaced by the new word. This
189 is intended to provide a clean way to rename a function or vari‐
190 able. Such renamings typically affect lines all through the source
191 code, so a traditional line-based patch would be very likely to
192 conflict with other branches, requiring manual merging.
193 Files are tokenized according to one simple rule: words are strings
195 of valid token characters, and everything between them (punctuation
196 and whitespace) is discarded. By default, valid token characters
197 are letters, numbers and the underscore (i.e. [A-Za-z0-9_]). How‐
198 ever if the old and/or new token contains either a hyphen or
199 period, BOTH hyphen and period are treated as valid (i.e.
200 [A-Za-z0-9_.-]).
201 The set of valid characters can be customized using the
203 --token-chars option. The argument must be surrounded by square
204 brackets. If a hyphen occurs between two characters in the set, it
205 is treated as a set range. For example, in most locales [A-Z]
206 denotes all uppercase letters. If the first character is a caret,
207 valid tokens are taken to be the complement of the remaining char‐
208 acters. For example, [^:\n] could be used to match fields in the
209 passwd(5), where records and fields are separated by newlines and
210 colons respectively.
211 If you choose to use --token-chars, you are STRONGLY encouraged to
213 do so consistently. The consequences of using multiple replace
214 patches with different --token-chars arguments on the same file are
215 not well tested nor well understood.
216 By default Darcs will refuse to perform a replacement if the new
218 token is already in use, because the replacements would be not be
219 distinguishable from the existing tokens. This behaviour can be
220 overridden by supplying the --force option, but an attempt to
221 `darcs rollback' the resulting patch will affect these existing
222 tokens.
223 Limitations:
225 The tokenizer treats files as byte strings, so it is not possible
227 for --token-chars to include multi-byte characters, such as the
228 non-ASCII parts of UTF-8. Similarly, trying to replace a
229 `high-bit' character from a unibyte encoding will also result in
230 replacement of the same byte in files with different encodings.
231 For example, an acute a from ISO 8859-1 will also match an alpha
232 from ISO 8859-7.
233 Due to limitations in the patch file format, --token-chars argu‐
235 ments cannot contain literal whitespace. For example, [^ \n\t]
236 cannot be used to declare all characters except the space, tab and
237 newline as valid within a word, because it contains a literal
238 space.
239 Unlike POSIX regex(7) bracket expressions, character classes (such
241 as [[:alnum:]]) are NOT supported by --token-chars, and will be
242 silently treated as a simple set of characters.
243 darcs revert [file|directory]...
245 The `darcs revert' command discards unrecorded changes the working
246 tree. As with `darcs record', you will be asked which hunks
247 (changes) to revert. The --all switch can be used to avoid such
248 prompting. If files or directories are specified, other parts of
249 the working tree are not reverted.
250 In you accidentally reverted something you wanted to keep (for
252 example, typing `darcs rev -a' instead of `darcs rec -a'), you can
253 immediately run `darcs unrevert' to restore it. This is only guar‐
254 anteed to work if the repository has not changed since `darcs
255 revert' ran.
256 darcs unrevert
258 Unrevert is a rescue command in case you accidentally reverted
259 something you wanted to keep (for example, typing `darcs rev -a'
260 instead of `darcs rec -a').
261 This command may fail if the repository has changed since the
263 revert took place. Darcs will ask for confirmation before execut‐
264 ing an interactive command that will DEFINITELY prevent unrever‐
265 sion.
266 darcs whatsnew [file|directory]...
268 The `darcs whatsnew' command lists unrecorded changes to the work‐
269 ing tree. If you specify a set of files and directories, only
270 unrecorded changes to those files and directories are listed.
271 With the --summary option, the changes are condensed to one line
273 per file, with mnemonics to indicate the nature and extent of the
274 change. The --look-for-adds option causes candidates for `darcs
275 add' to be included in the summary output. Summary mnemonics are
276 as follows:
277 `A f' and `A d/' respectively mean an added file or directory.
279 `R f' and `R d/' respectively mean a removed file or directory.
280 `M f -N +M rP' means a modified file, with N lines deleted, M
281 lines added, and P lexical replacements.
282 `f -> g' means a moved file or directory.
283 An exclamation mark (!) as in `R! foo.c', means the hunk is known
285 to
286 conflict with a hunk in another patch. The phrase `duplicated'
287 means the hunk is known to be identical to a hunk in another
288 patch.
289 By default, `darcs whatsnew' uses Darcs' internal format for
291 changes. To see some context (unchanged lines) around each change,
292 use the --unified option. To view changes in conventional `diff'
293 format, use the `darcs diff' command; but note that `darcs what‐
294 snew' is faster.
295 This command exits unsuccessfully (returns a non-zero exit status)
297 if there are no unrecorded changes.
298 Copying changes between the working copy and the repository:
301 darcs record [file|directory]...
302 The `darcs record' command is used to create a patch from changes
303 in the working tree. If you specify a set of files and directo‐
304 ries, changes to other files will be skipped.
305 Every patch has a name, an optional description, an author and a
307 date.
308 The patch name should be a short sentence that concisely describes
310 the patch, such as `Add error handling to main event loop.' You
311 can supply it in advance with the -m option, or provide it when
312 prompted.
313 The patch description is an optional block of free-form text. It
315 is used to supply additional information that doesn't fit in the
316 patch name. For example, it might include a rationale of WHY the
317 change was necessary. By default Darcs asks if you want to add a
318 description; the --edit-long-comment and --skip-long-comment can be
319 used to answer `yes' or `no' (respectively) to this prompt.
320 Finally, the --logfile option allows you to supply a file that
321 already contains the patch name (first line) and patch description
322 (subsequent lines). This is useful if a previous record failed and
323 left a darcs-record-0 file.
324 Each patch is attributed to its author, usually by email address
326 (for example, `Fred Bloggs <fred@example.net>'). Darcs looks in
327 several places for this author string: the --author option, the
328 files _darcs/prefs/author (in the repository) and ~/.darcs/author
329 (in your home directory), and the environment variables
330 $DARCS_EMAIL and $EMAIL. If none of those exist, Darcs will prompt
331 you for an author string and write it to _darcs/prefs/author.
332 The patch date is generated automatically. It can only be spoofed
334 by using the --pipe option.
335 If a test command has been defined with `darcs setpref', attempting
337 to record a patch will cause the test command to be run in a clean
338 copy of the working tree (that is, including only recorded
339 changes). If the test fails, the record operation will be aborted.
340 The --set-scripts-executable option causes scripts to be made exe‐
342 cutable in the clean copy of the working tree, prior to running the
343 test. See `darcs get' for an explanation of the script heuristic.
344 If your test command is tediously slow (e.g. `make all') and you
346 are recording several patches in a row, you may wish to use
347 --no-test to skip all but the final test.
348 darcs unrecord
350 Unrecord does the opposite of record in that it makes the changes
351 from patches active changes again which you may record or revert
352 later. The working copy itself will not change. Beware that you
353 should not use this command if you are going to re-record the
354 changes in any way and there is a possibility that another user may
355 have already pulled the patch.
356 darcs amend-record [file|directory]...
358 Amend-record updates a `draft' patch with additions or improve‐
359 ments, resulting in a single `finished' patch. This is better than
360 recording the additions and improvements as separate patches,
361 because then whenever the `draft' patch is copied between reposito‐
362 ries, you would need to make sure all the extra patches are copied,
363 too.
364 Do not copy draft patches between repositories, because a finished
366 patch cannot be copied into a repository that contains a draft of
367 the same patch. If this has already happened, `darcs obliterate'
368 can be used to remove the draft patch.
369 Do not run amend-record in repository that other developers can
371 pull from, because if they pull while an amend-record is in
372 progress, their repository may be corrupted.
373 When recording a draft patch, it is a good idea to start the name
375 with `DRAFT:' so that other developers know it is not finished.
376 When finished, remove it with `darcs amend-record --edit-long-com‐
377 ment'. To change the patch name without starting an editor, use
378 --patch-name.
379 Like `darcs record', if you call amend-record with files as argu‐
381 ments, you will only be asked about changes to those files. So to
382 amend a patch to foo.c with improvements in bar.c, you would run:
383 darcs amend-record --match 'touch foo.c' bar.c
385 It is usually a bad idea to amend another developer's patch. To
387 make amend-record only ask about your own patches by default, you
388 can add something like `amend-record match David Roundy' to
389 ~/.darcs/defaults, where `David Roundy' is your name. On Windows
390 use C:/Documents And Settings/user/Application Data/darcs/defaults
391 darcs mark-conflicts
393 Darcs requires human guidance to unify changes to the same part of
394 a source file. When a conflict first occurs, darcs will add both
395 choices to the working tree, delimited by the markers `v v v', `* *
396 *' and `^ ^ ^'.
397 However, you might revert or manually delete these markers without
399 actually resolving the conflict. In this case, `darcs mark-con‐
400 flicts' is useful to show where any unresolved conflicts. It is
401 also useful if `darcs apply' is called with --apply-conflicts,
402 where conflicts aren't marked initially.
403 Any unrecorded changes to the working tree WILL be lost forever
405 when you run this command! You will be prompted for confirmation
406 before this takes place.
407 This command was historically called `resolve', and this deprecated
409 alias still exists for backwards-compatibility.
410 Direct modification of the repository:
413 darcs tag [tagname]
414 The `darcs tag' command names the current repository state, so that
415 it can easily be referred to later. Every `important' state should
416 be tagged; in particular it is good practice to tag each stable
417 release with a number or codename. Advice on release numbering can
418 be found at http://producingoss.com/en/development-cycle.html.
419 To reproduce the state of a repository `R' as at tag `t', use the
421 command `darcs get --tag t R'. The command `darcs show tags' lists
422 all tags in the current repository.
423 Tagging also provides significant performance benefits: when Darcs
425 reaches a shared tag that depends on all antecedent patches, it can
426 simply stop processing.
427 Like normal patches, a tag has a name, an author, a timestamp and
429 an optional long description, but it does not change the working
430 tree. A tag can have any name, but it is generally best to pick a
431 naming scheme and stick to it.
432 The `darcs tag' command accepts the --pipe option, which behaves as
434 described in `darcs record'.
435 darcs setpref <pref> <value>
437 When working on project with multiple repositories and contribu‐
438 tors, it is sometimes desirable for a preference to be set consis‐
439 tently project-wide. This is achieved by treating a preference set
440 with `darcs setpref' as an unrecorded change, which can then be
441 recorded and then treated like any other patch.
442 Valid preferences are:
444 test -- a shell command that runs regression tests
446 predist -- a shell command to run before `darcs dist'
447 boringfile -- the path to a version-controlled boring file
448 binariesfile -- the path to a version-controlled binaries file
449 For example, a project using GNU autotools, with a `make test' tar‐
451 get to perform regression tests, might enable Darcs' integrated
452 regression testing with the following command:
453 darcs setpref test 'autoconf && ./configure && make && make test'
455 Note that merging is not currently implemented for preferences: if
457 two patches attempt to set the same preference, the last patch
458 applied to the repository will always take precedence. This is
459 considered a low-priority bug, because preferences are seldom set.
460 Querying the repository:
463 darcs diff [file|directory]...
464 Diff can be used to create a diff between two versions which are in
465 your repository. Specifying just --from-patch will get you a diff
466 against your working copy. If you give diff no version arguments,
467 it gives you the same information as whatsnew except that the patch
468 is formatted as the output of a diff command
469 darcs changes [file|directory]...
471 The `darcs changes' command lists the patches that constitute the
472 current repository or, with --repo, a remote repository. Without
473 options or arguments, ALL patches will be listed.
474 When given one or more files or directories as arguments, only
476 patches which affect those files or directories are listed. This
477 includes changes that happened to files before they were moved or
478 renamed.
479 When given a --from-tag, --from-patch or --from-match, only changes
481 since that tag or patch are listed. Similarly, the --to-tag,
482 --to-patch and --to-match options restrict the list to older
483 patches.
484 The --last and --max-count options both limit the number of patches
486 listed. The former applies BEFORE other filters, whereas the lat‐
487 ter applies AFTER other filters. For example `darcs changes foo.c
488 --max-count 3' will print the last three patches that affect foo.c,
489 whereas `darcs changes --last 3 foo.c' will, of the last three
490 patches, print only those that affect foo.c.
491 Three output formats exist. The default is --human-readable. You
493 can also select --context, which is the internal format (as seen in
494 patch bundles) that can be re-read by Darcs (e.g. `darcs get --con‐
495 text').
496 Finally, there is --xml-output, which emits valid XML... unless a
498 the patch metadata (author, name or description) contains a
499 non-ASCII character and was recorded in a non-UTF8 locale.
500 Note that while the --context flag may be used in conjunction with
502 --xml-output or --human-readable, in neither case will darcs get be
503 able to read the output. On the other hand, sufficient information
504 WILL be output for a knowledgeable human to recreate the current
505 state of the repository.
506 darcs annotate [file|directory]...
508 The `darcs annotate' command provides two unrelated operations.
509 When called on a file, it will find the patch that last modified
510 each line in that file. When called on a patch (e.g. using
511 --patch), it will print the internal representation of that patch.
512 The --summary option will result in a summarized patch annotation,
514 similar to `darcs whatsnew'. It has no effect on file annotations.
515 By default, output is in a human-readable format. The --xml-output
517 option can be used to generate output for machine postprocessing.
518 darcs dist
520 The `darcs dist' command creates a compressed archive (a `tarball')
521 in the repository's root directory, containing the recorded state
522 of the working tree (unrecorded changes and the _darcs directory
523 are excluded).
524 If a predist command is set (see `darcs setpref'), that command
526 will be run on the tarball contents prior to archiving. For exam‐
527 ple, autotools projects would set it to `autoconf && automake'.
528 By default, the tarball (and the top-level directory within the
530 tarball) has the same name as the repository, but this can be over‐
531 ridden with the --dist-name option.
532 darcs trackdown [[initialization] command]
534 Trackdown tries to find the most recent version in the repository
535 which passes a test. Given no arguments, it uses the default
536 repository test. Given one argument, it treats it as a test com‐
537 mand. Given two arguments, the first is an initialization command
538 with is run only once, and the second is the test command.
539 darcs show contents [file]...
541 Show contents can be used to display an earlier version of some
542 file(s). If you give show contents no version arguments, it dis‐
543 plays the recorded version of the file(s).
544 darcs show files [file|directory]...
546 The `darcs show files' command lists those files and directories in
547 the working tree that are under version control. This command is
548 primarily for scripting purposes; end users will probably want
549 `darcs whatsnew --summary'.
550 A file is `pending' if it has been added but not recorded. By
552 default, pending files (and directories) are listed; the --no-pend‐
553 ing option prevents this.
554 By default `darcs show files' lists both files and directories, but
556 the alias `darcs show manifest' only lists files. The --files,
557 --directories, --no-files and --no-directories modify this behav‐
558 iour.
559 By default entries are one-per-line (i.e. newline separated). This
561 can cause problems if the files themselves contain newlines or
562 other control characters. To get aroudn this, the --null option
563 uses the null character instead. The script interpreting output
564 from this command needs to understand this idiom; `xargs -0' is
565 such a command.
566 For example, to list version-controlled files by size:
568 darcs show files -0 | xargs -0 ls -ldS
570 darcs show index
572 The `darcs show index' command lists all version-controlled files
573 and directories along with their hashes as stored in _darcs/index.
574 For files, the fields correspond to file size, sha256 of the cur‐
575 rent file content and the filename.
576 darcs show pristine
577 The `darcs show pristine' command lists all version-controlled
578 files and directories along with the hashes of their pristine
579 copies. For files, the fields correspond to file size, sha256 of
580 the pristine file content and the filename.
581 darcs show repo
582 The `darcs show repo' command displays statistics about the current
583 repository, allowing third-party scripts to access this information
584 without inspecting _darcs directly (and without breaking when the
585 _darcs format changes).
586 By default, the number of patches is shown. If this data isn't
588 needed, use --no-files to accelerate this command from O(n) to
589 O(1).
590 By default, output is in a human-readable format. The --xml-output
592 option can be used to generate output for machine postprocessing.
593 darcs show authors
595 The `darcs show authors' command lists the authors of the current
596 repository, sorted by the number of patches contributed. With the
597 --verbose option, this command simply lists the author of each
598 patch (without aggregation or sorting).
599 An author's name or email address may change over time. To tell
601 Darcs when multiple author strings refer to the same individual,
602 create an `.authorspellings' file in the root of the working tree.
603 Each line in this file begins with an author's canonical name and
604 address, and may be followed by a comma separated list of extended
605 regular expressions. Blank lines and lines beginning with two
606 hyphens are ignored. The format of .authorspelling can be
607 described by this pattern:
608 name <address> [, regexp ]*
610 There are some pitfalls concerning special characters: Whitespaces
612 are stripped, if you need space in regexp use [ ]. Because comma
613 serves as a separator you have to escape it if you want it in reg‐
614 exp. Note that .authorspelingfile use extended regular expressions
615 so +, ? and so on are metacharacters and you need to escape them to
616 be interpreted literally.
617 Any patch with an author string that matches the canonical address
619 or any of the associated regexps is considered to be the work of
620 that author. All matching is case-insensitive and partial (it can
621 match a substring). Use ^,$ to match the whole string in regexps
622 Currently this canonicalization step is done only in `darcs show
624 authors'. Other commands, such as `darcs changes' use author
625 strings verbatim.
626 An example .authorspelling file is:
628 -- This is a comment.
630 Fred Nurk <fred@example.com>
631 John Snagge <snagge@bbc.co.uk>, John, snagge@, js@(si|mit).edu
632 Chuck Jones\, Jr. <chuck@pobox.com>, cj\+user@example.com
633 darcs show tags
635 The tags command writes a list of all tags in the repository to
636 standard output.
637 Tab characters (ASCII character 9) in tag names are changed to spa‐
639 ces for better interoperability with shell tools. A warning is
640 printed if this happens.
641 Copying patches between repositories with working copy update:
643 darcs pull [repository]...
644 Pull is used to bring changes made in another repository into the
645 current repository (that is, either the one in the current direc‐
646 tory, or the one specified with the --repodir option). Pull allows
647 you to bring over all or some of the patches that are in that
648 repository but not in this one. Pull accepts arguments, which are
649 URLs from which to pull, and when called without an argument, pull
650 will use the repository from which you have most recently either
651 pushed or pulled.
652 darcs obliterate
654 Obliterate completely removes recorded patches from your local
655 repository. The changes will be undone in your working copy and
656 the patches will not be shown in your changes list anymore. Beware
657 that you can lose precious code by obliterating!
658 darcs rollback [file|directory]...
660 Rollback is used to undo the effects of one or more patches without
661 actually deleting them. Instead, it creates a new patch reversing
662 selected portions. of those changes. Unlike obliterate and
663 unrecord (which accomplish a similar goal) rollback is perfectly
664 safe, since it leaves in the repository a record of its changes.
665 darcs push [repository]
667 Push is the opposite of pull. Push allows you to copy changes from
668 the current repository into another repository.
669 darcs send [repository]
671 Send is used to prepare a bundle of patches that can be applied to
672 a target repository. Send accepts the URL of the repository as an
673 argument. When called without an argument, send will use the most
674 recent repository that was either pushed to, pulled from or sent
675 to. By default, the patch bundle is sent by email, although you
676 may save it to a file.
677 darcs apply <patchfile>
679 The `darcs apply' command takes a patch bundle and attempts to
680 insert it into the current repository. In addition to invoking it
681 directly on bundles created by `darcs send', it is used internally
682 by `darcs push' and `darcs put' on the remote end of an SSH connec‐
683 tion.
684 If no file is supplied, the bundle is read from standard input.
686 If given an email instead of a patch bundle, Darcs will look for
688 the bundle as a MIME attachment to that email. Currently this will
689 fail if the MIME boundary is rewritten, such as in Courier and
690 Mail.app.
691 If the `--reply noreply@example.net' option is used, and the bundle
693 is attached to an email, Darcs will send a report (indicating suc‐
694 cess or failure) to the sender of the bundle (the To field). The
695 argument to noreply is the address the report will appear to origi‐
696 nate FROM.
697 The --cc option will cause the report to be CC'd to another
699 address, for example `--cc reports@lists.exam‐
700 ple.net,admin@lists.example.net'. Using --cc without --reply is
701 undefined.
702 If gpg(1) is installed, you can use `--verify pubring.gpg' to
704 reject bundles that aren't signed by a key in pubring.gpg.
705 If --test is supplied and a test is defined (see `darcs setpref'),
707 the bundle will be rejected if the test fails after applying it.
708 In that case, the rejection email from --reply will include the
709 test output.
710 A patch bundle may introduce unresolved conflicts with existing
712 patches or with the working tree. By default, Darcs will add con‐
713 flict markers (see `darcs mark-conflicts').
714 The --allow-conflicts option will skip conflict marking; this is
716 useful when you want to treat a repository as just a bunch of
717 patches, such as using `darcs pull --union' to download of your
718 co-workers patches before going offline.
719 This can mess up unrecorded changes in the working tree, forcing
721 you to resolve the conflict immediately. To simply reject bundles
722 that introduce unresolved conflicts, using the --dont-allow-con‐
723 flicts option. Making this the default in push-based workflows is
724 strongly recommended.
725 Unlike most Darcs commands, `darcs apply' defaults to --all. Use
727 the --interactive option to pick which patches to apply from a bun‐
728 dle.
729 darcs get <repository> [<directory>]
731 Get creates a local copy of a repository. The optional second
732 argument specifies a destination directory for the new copy; if
733 omitted, it is inferred from the source location.
734 By default Darcs will copy every patch from the original reposi‐
736 tory. This means the copy is completely independent of the origi‐
737 nal; you can operate on the new repository even when the original
738 is inaccessible. If you expect the original repository to remain
739 accessible, you can use --lazy to avoid copying patches until they
740 are needed (`copy on demand'). This is particularly useful when
741 copying a remote repository with a long history that you don't care
742 about.
743 The --lazy option isn't as useful for local copies, because Darcs
745 will automatically use `hard linking' where possible. As well as
746 saving time and space, you can move or delete the original reposi‐
747 tory without affecting a complete, hard-linked copy. Hard linking
748 requires that the copy be on the same filesystem and the original
749 repository, and that the filesystem support hard linking. This
750 includes NTFS, HFS+ and all general-purpose Unix filesystems (such
751 as ext3, UFS and ZFS). FAT does not support hard links.
752 Darcs get will not copy unrecorded changes to the source reposi‐
754 tory's working tree.
755 It is often desirable to make a copy of a repository that excludes
757 some patches. For example, if releases are tagged then `darcs get
758 --tag .' would make a copy of the repository as at the latest
759 release.
760 An untagged repository state can still be identified unambiguously
762 by a context file, as generated by `darcs changes --context'.
763 Given the name of such a file, the --context option will create a
764 repository that includes only the patches from that context. When
765 a user reports a bug in an unreleased version of your project, the
766 recommended way to find out exactly what version they were running
767 is to have them include a context file in the bug report.
768 You can also make a copy of an untagged state using the --to-patch
770 or --to-match options, which exclude patches `after' the first
771 matching patch. Because these options treat the set of patches as
772 an ordered sequence, you may get different results after reordering
773 with `darcs optimize', so tagging is preferred.
774 If the source repository is in a legacy darcs-1 format and contains
776 at least one checkpoint (see `darcs optimize'), the --partial
777 option will create a partial repository. A partial repository dis‐
778 cards history from before the checkpoint in order to reduce
779 resource requirements. For modern darcs-2 repositories, --partial
780 is a deprecated alias for the --lazy option.
781 A repository created by `darcs get' will be in the best available
783 format: it will be able to exchange patches with the source reposi‐
784 tory, but will not be directly readable by Darcs binaries older
785 than 2.0.0. Use the `--old-fashioned-inventory' option if the lat‐
786 ter is required.
787 darcs put <new repository>
789 The `darcs put' command creates a copy of the current repository.
790 It is currently very inefficient, so when creating local copies you
791 should use `darcs get . x' instead of `darcs put x'.
792 Currently this command just uses `darcs init' to create the target
794 repository, then `darcs push --all' to copy patches to it. Options
795 passed to `darcs put' are passed to the init and/or push commands
796 as appropriate. See those commands for an explanation of each
797 option.
798 Administrating repositories:
801 darcs initialize
802 The `darcs initialize' command turns the current directory into a
803 Darcs repository. Any existing files and subdirectories become
804 UNSAVED changes in the working tree: record them with `darcs add
805 -r' and `darcs record'.
806 When converting a project to Darcs from some other VCS, translating
808 the full revision history to native Darcs patches is recommended.
809 (The Darcs wiki lists utilities for this.) Because Darcs is opti‐
810 mized for small patches, simply importing the latest revision as a
811 single large patch can PERMANENTLY degrade Darcs performance in
812 your repository by an order of magnitude.
813 This command creates the `_darcs' directory, which stores version
815 control metadata. It also contains per-repository settings in
816 _darcs/prefs/, which you can read about in the user manual.
817 In addition to the default `darcs-2' format, there are two backward
819 compatibility formats for the _darcs directory. These formats are
820 only useful if some of your contributors do not have access to
821 Darcs 2.0 or higher. In that case, you need to use the original
822 format (called `old-fashioned inventory' or `darcs-1') for any
823 repositories those contributors access.
824 As patches cannot be shared between darcs-2 and darcs-1 reposito‐
826 ries, you cannot use the darcs-2 format for private branches of
827 such a project. Instead, you should use the `hashed' format, which
828 provides most of the features of the darcs-2 format, while retain‐
829 ing the ability to share patches with darcs-1 repositories. The
830 `darcs get' command will do this by default.
831 Once all contributors have access to Darcs 2.0 or higher, a darcs-1
833 project can be migrated to darcs-2 using the `darcs convert' com‐
834 mand.
835 Darcs will create a hashed repository by default when you `darcs
837 get' a repository in old-fashioned inventory format. Once all con‐
838 tributors have upgraded to Darcs 2.0 or later, use `darcs convert'
839 to convert the project to the darcs-2 format.
840 Initialize is commonly abbreviated to `init'.
842 darcs optimize
844 The `darcs optimize' command modifies the current repository in an
845 attempt to reduce its resource requirements. By default a single
846 fast, safe optimization is performed; additional optimization tech‐
847 niques can be enabled by passing options to `darcs optimize'.
848 The default optimization moves recent patches (those not included
850 in the latest tag) to the `front', reducing the amount that a typi‐
851 cal remote command needs to download. It should also reduce the
852 CPU time needed for some operations.
853 The `darcs optimize --relink' command hard-links patches that the
855 current repository has in common with its peers. Peers are those
856 repositories listed in _darcs/prefs/sources, or defined with the
857 `--sibling' option (which can be used multiple times).
858 Darcs uses hard-links automatically, so this command is rarely
860 needed. It is most useful if you used `cp -r' instead of `darcs
861 get' to copy a repository, or if you pulled the same patch from a
862 remote repository into multiple local repositories.
863 A `darcs optimize --relink-pristine' command is also available, but
865 generally SHOULD NOT be used. It results in a relatively small
866 space saving at the cost of making many Darcs commands MUCH slower.
867 By default patches are compressed with zlib (RFC 1951) to reduce
869 storage (and download) size. In exceptional circumstances, it may
870 be preferable to avoid compression. In this case the `--dont-com‐
871 press' option can be used (e.g. with `darcs record') to avoid com‐
872 pression.
873 The `darcs optimize --uncompress' and `darcs optimize --compress'
875 commands can be used to ensure existing patches in the current
876 repository are respectively uncompressed or compressed. Note that
877 repositories in the legacy `old-fashioned-inventory' format have a
878 .gz extension on patch files even when uncompressed.
879 There is one more optimization which CAN NOT be performed by this
881 command. Every time your record a patch, a new inventory file is
882 written to _darcs/inventories/, and old inventories are never
883 reaped.
884 If _darcs/inventories/ is consuming a relatively large amount of
886 space, you can safely reclaim it by using `darcs get' to make a
887 complete copy of the repo. When doing so, don't forget to copy
888 over any unsaved changes you have made to the working tree or to
889 unversioned files in _darcs/prefs/ (such as _darcs/prefs/author).
890 darcs check
892 This command verifies that the patches in the repository, when
893 applied successively to an empty tree, result in the pristine tree.
894 If not, the differences are printed and Darcs exits unsucessfully
895 (with a non-zero exit status).
896 If the repository is in darcs-1 format and has a checkpoint, you
898 can use the --partial option to start checking from the latest
899 checkpoint. This is the default for partial darcs-1 repositories;
900 the --complete option to forces a full check.
901 If a regression test is defined (see `darcs setpref') it will be
903 run by `darcs check'. Use the --no-test option to disable this.
904 darcs repair
906 The `darcs repair' command attempts to fix corruption in the cur‐
907 rent repository. Currently it can only repair damage to the pris‐
908 tine tree, which is where most corruption occurs.
909 darcs convert <source> [<destination>]
911 The current repository format is called `darcs-2'. It was intro‐
912 duced in Darcs 2.0 and became the default for new projects in Darcs
913 2.2. The `darcs convert' command allows existing projects to
914 migrate to this format from the older `darcs-1' format.
915 This command DOES NOT modify the source repository; a new destina‐
917 tion repository is created. It is safe to run this command more
918 than once on a repository (e.g. for testing), before the final con‐
919 version.
920 WARNING: the repository produced by this command is not understood
922 by Darcs 1.x, and patches cannot be exchanged between repositories
923 in darcs-1 and darcs-2 formats.
924 Furthermore, darcs 2 repositories created by different invocations
926 of this command SHOULD NOT exchange patches, unless those reposito‐
927 ries had no patches in common when they were converted. (That is,
928 within a set of repos that exchange patches, no patch should be
929 converted more than once.)
930 Due to this limitation, migrating a multi-branch project is a lit‐
932 tle awkward. Sorry! Here is the recommended process:
933 1. for each branch `foo', tag that branch with `foo-final';
935 2. merge all branches together (--allow-conflicts may help);
936 3. run `darcs optimize --reorder' on the result;
937 4. run `darcs convert' to create a merged darcs-2 repository;
938 5. re-create each branch by calling `darcs get --tag foo-final' on
939 the darcs-2 repository; and finally
940 6. use `darcs obliterate' to delete the foo-final tags.
941
945 HOME and APPDATA
946 Per-user preferences are set in $HOME/.darcs (on Unix) or %APP‐
947 DATA%/darcs (on Windows). This is also the default location of the
948 cache.
949 DARCS_EDITOR, DARCSEDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR
951 To edit a patch description of email comment, Darcs will invoke an
952 external editor. Your preferred editor can be set as any of the envi‐
953 ronment variables $DARCS_EDITOR, $DARCSEDITOR, $VISUAL or $EDITOR. If
954 none of these are set, vi(1) is used. If vi crashes or is not found in
955 your PATH, emacs, emacs -nw, nano and (on Windows) edit are each tried
956 in turn.
957 DARCS_PAGER and PAGER
959 Darcs will sometimes invoke a pager if it deems output to be too long
960 to fit onscreen. Darcs will use the pager specified by $DARCS_PAGER or
961 $PAGER. If neither are set, `less' will be used.
962 DARCS_TMPDIR and TMPDIR
964 Darcs often creates temporary directories. For example, the `darcs
965 diff' command creates two for the working trees to be diffed. By
966 default temporary directories are created in /tmp, or if that doesn't
967 exist, in _darcs (within the current repo). This can be overridden by
968 specifying some other directory in the file _darcs/prefs/tmpdir or the
969 environment variable $DARCS_TMPDIR or $TMPDIR.
970 DARCS_KEEP_TMPDIR
972 If the environment variable DARCS_KEEP_TMPDIR is defined, darcs will
973 not remove the temporary directories it creates. This is intended pri‐
974 marily for debugging Darcs itself, but it can also be useful, for exam‐
975 ple, to determine why your test preference (see `darcs setpref') is
976 failing when you run `darcs record', but working when run manually.
977 DARCS_EMAIL and EMAIL
979 Each patch is attributed to its author, usually by email address (for
980 example, `Fred Bloggs <fred@example.net>'). Darcs looks in several
981 places for this author string: the --author option, the files
982 _darcs/prefs/author (in the repository) and ~/.darcs/author (in your
983 home directory), and the environment variables $DARCS_EMAIL and $EMAIL.
984 If none of those exist, Darcs will prompt you for an author string and
985 write it to _darcs/prefs/author.
986 SENDMAIL
988 On Unix, the `darcs send' command relies on sendmail(8). The `--send‐
989 mail-command' or $SENDMAIL environment variable can be used to provide
990 an explicit path to this program; otherwise the standard locations
991 /usr/sbin/sendmail and /usr/lib/sendmail will be tried.
992 DARCS_SSH
994 Repositories of the form [user@]host:[dir] are taken to be remote
995 repositories, which Darcs accesses with the external program ssh(1).
996 The environment variable $DARCS_SSH can be used to specify an alterna‐
998 tive SSH client. Arguments may be included, separated by whitespace.
999 The value is not interpreted by a shell, so shell constructs cannot be
1000 used; in particular, it is not possible for the program name to contain
1001 whitespace by using quoting or escaping.
1002 DARCS_SCP and DARCS_SFTP
1004 When reading from a remote repository, Darcs will attempt to run `darcs
1005 transfer-mode' on the remote host. This will fail if the remote host
1006 only has Darcs 1 installed, doesn't have Darcs installed at all, or
1007 only allows SFTP.
1008 If transfer-mode fails, Darcs will fall back on scp(1) and sftp(1).
1010 The commands invoked can be customized with the environment variables
1011 $DARCS_SCP and $DARCS_SFTP respectively, which behave like $DARCS_SSH.
1012 If the remote end allows only sftp, try setting DARCS_SCP=sftp.
1013 SSH_PORT
1015 If this environment variable is set, it will be used as the port number
1016 for all SSH calls made by Darcs (when accessing remote repositories
1017 over SSH). This is useful if your SSH server does not run on the
1018 default port, and your SSH client does not support ssh_config(5).
1019 OpenSSH users will probably prefer to put something like `Host *.exam‐
1020 ple.net Port 443' into their ~/.ssh/config file.
1021 HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, FTP_PROXY, ALL_PROXY and NO_PROXY
1023 If Darcs was built with libcurl, the environment variables HTTP_PROXY,
1024 HTTPS_PROXY and FTP_PROXY can be set to the URL of a proxy in the form
1025 [protocol://]<host>[:port]
1027 In which case libcurl will use the proxy for the associated protocol
1029 (HTTP, HTTPS and FTP). The environment variable ALL_PROXY can be used
1030 to set a single proxy for all libcurl requests.
1031 If the environment variable NO_PROXY is a comma-separated list of host
1033 names, access to those hosts will bypass proxies defined by the above
1034 variables. For example, it is quite common to avoid proxying requests
1035 to machines on the local network with
1036 NO_PROXY=localhost,*.localdomain
1038 For compatibility with lynx et al, lowercase equivalents of these envi‐
1040 ronment variables (e.g. $http_proxy) are also understood and are used
1041 in preference to the uppercase versions.
1042 If Darcs was not built with libcurl, all these environment variables
1044 are silently ignored, and there is no way to use a web proxy.
1045 DARCS_PROXYUSERPWD
1047 If Darcs was built with libcurl, and you are using a web proxy that
1048 requires authentication, you can set the $DARCS_PROXYUSERPWD environ‐
1049 ment variable to the username and password expected by the proxy, sepa‐
1050 rated by a colon. This environment variable is silently ignored if
1051 Darcs was not built with libcurl.
1052
1055 _darcs/prefs/binaries
1056 This file contains a list of extended regular expressions, one per
1057 line. A file path matching any of these expressions is assumed to con‐
1058 tain binary data (not text). The entries in ~/.darcs/binaries (if it
1059 exists) supplement those in this file.
1060 Blank lines, and lines beginning with an octothorpe (#) are ignored.
1062 See regex(7) for a description of extended regular expressions.
1063
1066 At http://bugs.darcs.net/ you can find a list of known bugs in Darcs.
1067 Unknown bugs can be reported at that site (after creating an account)
1068 or by emailing the report to bugs@darcs.net.
1069
1071 A user manual is included with Darcs, in PDF and HTML form. It can
1072 also be found at http://darcs.net/manual/.
1073 2.4.4 (release) DARCS(1)