Template Usage

Mercurial allows you to customize output of commands through templates. You can either pass in a template from the command line, via the --template option, or select an existing template-style (--style).

You can customize output for any "log-like" command: log, outgoing, incoming, tip, parents, heads and glog.

Four styles are packaged with Mercurial: default (the style used when no explicit preference is passed), compact, changelog, and xml. Usage:

$ hg log -r1 --style changelog

A template is a piece of text, with markup to invoke variable expansion:

$ hg log -r1 --template "{node}\n"
b56ce7b07c52de7d5fd79fb89701ea538af65746

Strings in curly braces are called keywords. The availability of keywords depends on the exact context of the templater. These keywords are usually available for templating a log-like command:

author

String. The unmodified author of the changeset.

bisect

String. The changeset bisection status.

bookmarks

List of strings. Any bookmarks associated with the changeset.

branch

String. The name of the branch on which the changeset was committed.

branches

List of strings. The name of the branch on which the changeset was committed. Will be empty if the branch name was default.

children

List of strings. The children of the changeset.

date

Date information. The date when the changeset was committed.

desc

String. The text of the changeset description.

diffstat

String. Statistics of changes with the following format: "modified files: +added/-removed lines"

file_adds

List of strings. Files added by this changeset.

file_copies

List of strings. Files copied in this changeset with their sources.

file_copies_switch

List of strings. Like "file_copies" but displayed only if the --copied switch is set.

file_dels

List of strings. Files removed by this changeset.

file_mods

List of strings. Files modified by this changeset.

files

List of strings. All files modified, added, or removed by this changeset.

latesttag

String. Most recent global tag in the ancestors of this changeset.

latesttagdistance

Integer. Longest path to the latest tag.

node

String. The changeset identification hash, as a 40 hexadecimal digit string.

p1node

String. The identification hash of the changeset's first parent, as a 40 digit hexadecimal string. If the changeset has no parents, all digits are 0.

p1rev

Integer. The repository-local revision number of the changeset's first parent, or -1 if the changeset has no parents.

p2node

String. The identification hash of the changeset's second parent, as a 40 digit hexadecimal string. If the changeset has no second parent, all digits are 0.

p2rev

Integer. The repository-local revision number of the changeset's second parent, or -1 if the changeset has no second parent.

parents

List of strings. The parents of the changeset in "rev:node" format. If the changeset has only one "natural" parent (the predecessor revision) nothing is shown.

phase

String. The changeset phase name.

phaseidx

Integer. The changeset phase index.

rev

Integer. The repository-local changeset revision number.

tags

List of strings. Any tags associated with the changeset.

The "date" keyword does not produce human-readable output. If you want to use a date in your output, you can use a filter to process it. Filters are functions which return a string based on the input variable. Be sure to use the stringify filter first when you're applying a string-input filter to a list-like input variable. You can also use a chain of filters to get the desired output:

$ hg tip --template "{date|isodate}\n"
2008-08-21 18:22 +0000

List of filters:

addbreaks

Any text. Add an XHTML "<br />" tag before the end of every line except the last.

age

Date. Returns a human-readable date/time difference between the given date/time and the current date/time.

basename

Any text. Treats the text as a path, and returns the last component of the path after splitting by the path separator (ignoring trailing separators). For example, "foo/bar/baz" becomes "baz" and "foo/bar//" becomes "bar".

date

Date. Returns a date in a Unix date format, including the timezone: "Mon Sep 04 15:13:13 2006 0700".

domain

Any text. Finds the first string that looks like an email address, and extracts just the domain component. Example: "User <user@example.com>" becomes "example.com".

email

Any text. Extracts the first string that looks like an email address. Example: "User <user@example.com>" becomes "user@example.com".

emailuser

Any text. Returns the user portion of an email address.

escape

Any text. Replaces the special XML/XHTML characters "&", "<" and ">" with XML entities, and filters out NUL characters.

fill68

Any text. Wraps the text to fit in 68 columns.

fill76

Any text. Wraps the text to fit in 76 columns.

firstline

Any text. Returns the first line of text.

hex

Any text. Convert a binary Mercurial node identifier into its long hexadecimal representation.

hgdate

Date. Returns the date as a pair of numbers: "1157407993 25200" (Unix timestamp, timezone offset).

isodate

Date. Returns the date in ISO 8601 format: "2009-08-18 13:00 +0200".

isodatesec

Date. Returns the date in ISO 8601 format, including seconds: "2009-08-18 13:00:13 +0200". See also the rfc3339date filter.

localdate

Date. Converts a date to local date.

nonempty

Any text. Returns '(none)' if the string is empty.

obfuscate

Any text. Returns the input text rendered as a sequence of XML entities.

person

Any text. Returns the name before an email address, interpreting it as per RFC 5322.

rfc3339date

Date. Returns a date using the Internet date format specified in RFC 3339: "2009-08-18T13:00:13+02:00".

rfc822date

Date. Returns a date using the same format used in email headers: "Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:00:13 +0200".

short

Changeset hash. Returns the short form of a changeset hash, i.e. a 12 hexadecimal digit string.

shortbisect

Any text. Treats "text" as a bisection status, and returns a single-character representing the status (G: good, B: bad, S: skipped, U: untested, I: ignored). Returns single space if "text" is not a valid bisection status.

shortdate

Date. Returns a date like "2006-09-18".

stringify

Any type. Turns the value into text by converting values into text and concatenating them.

strip

Any text. Strips all leading and trailing whitespace.

stripdir

Treat the text as path and strip a directory level, if possible. For example, "foo" and "foo/bar" becomes "foo".

tabindent

Any text. Returns the text, with every line except the first starting with a tab character.

urlescape

Any text. Escapes all "special" characters. For example, "foo bar" becomes "foo%20bar".

user

Any text. Returns a short representation of a user name or email address.

Note that a filter is nothing more than a function call, i.e. "expr|filter" is equivalent to "filter(expr)".

In addition to filters, there are some basic built-in functions:

• date(date[, fmt])
• fill(text[, width])
• get(dict, key)
• if(expr, then[, else])
• ifeq(expr, expr, then[, else])
• join(list, sep)
• label(label, expr)
• sub(pat, repl, expr)
• rstdoc(text, style)

Also, for any expression that returns a list, there is a list operator:

• expr % "{template}"

Some sample command line templates:

• Format lists, e.g. files:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "files:\n{files % '  {file}\n'}"
  

• Join the list of files with a ", ":

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "files: {join(files, ', ')}\n"
  

• Format date:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "{date(date, '%Y')}\n"
  

• Output the description set to a fill-width of 30:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "{fill(desc, '30')}"
  

• Use a conditional to test for the default branch:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "{ifeq(branch, 'default', 'on the main branch',
  'on branch {branch}')}\n"
  

• Append a newline if not empty:

  $ hg tip --template "{if(author, '{author}\n')}"
  

• Label the output for use with the color extension:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "{label('changeset.{phase}', node|short)}\n"
  

• Invert the firstline filter, i.e. everything but the first line:

  $ hg log -r 0 --template "{sub(r'^.*\n?\n?', '', desc)}\n"