diff -r 5ff1fc726848 -r c6bca38c1cbf eggs/mercurial-1.7.3-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/mercurial/help/diffs.txt --- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/eggs/mercurial-1.7.3-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/mercurial/help/diffs.txt Sat Jan 08 11:20:57 2011 +0530 @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +Mercurial's default format for showing changes between two versions of +a file is compatible with the unified format of GNU diff, which can be +used by GNU patch and many other standard tools. + +While this standard format is often enough, it does not encode the +following information: + +- executable status and other permission bits +- copy or rename information +- changes in binary files +- creation or deletion of empty files + +Mercurial also supports the extended diff format from the git VCS +which addresses these limitations. The git diff format is not produced +by default because a few widespread tools still do not understand this +format. + +This means that when generating diffs from a Mercurial repository +(e.g. with :hg:`export`), you should be careful about things like file +copies and renames or other things mentioned above, because when +applying a standard diff to a different repository, this extra +information is lost. Mercurial's internal operations (like push and +pull) are not affected by this, because they use an internal binary +format for communicating changes. + +To make Mercurial produce the git extended diff format, use the --git +option available for many commands, or set 'git = True' in the [diff] +section of your configuration file. You do not need to set this option +when importing diffs in this format or using them in the mq extension.