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Most Mercurial commands accept various flags.
Flags for each command are listed in hg help for that command. Additionally, some flags, such as --repository, are global and can be used with any command - those are seen in hg help -v, and can be specified before or after the command.
Every flag has at least a long name, such as --repository. Some flags may also have a short one-letter name, such as the equivalent -R. Using the short or long name is equivalent and has the same effect. The long name may be abbreviated to any unambiguous prefix. For example, hg commit --amend can be abbreviated to hg commit --am.
Flags that have a short name can also be bundled together - for instance, to specify both --edit (short -e) and --interactive (short -i), one could use:
hg commit -ei
If any of the bundled flags takes a value (i.e. is not a boolean), it must be last, followed by the value:
hg commit -im 'Message'
Mercurial command-line flags can be strings, numbers, booleans, or lists of strings.
The following syntaxes are allowed, assuming a flag 'flagname' with short name 'f':
--flagname=foo --flagname foo -f foo -ffoo
This syntax applies to all non-boolean flags (strings, numbers or lists).
Boolean flags do not take a value parameter. To specify a boolean, use the flag name to set it to true, or the same name prefixed with 'no-' to set it to false:
hg commit --interactive hg commit --no-interactive
List flags take multiple values. To specify them, pass the flag multiple times:
hg files --include mercurial --include tests
In order to set a default value for a flag in an hgrc file, it is recommended to use aliases:
[alias] commit = commit --interactive
For more information on hgrc files, see hg help config.
If the same non-list flag is specified multiple times on the command line, the latest specification is used:
hg commit -m "Ignored value" -m "Used value"
This includes the use of aliases - e.g., if one has:
[alias] committemp = commit -m "Ignored value"
then the following command will override that -m:
hg committemp -m "Used value"
Every flag has a default value, and you may also set your own defaults in hgrc as described above. Except for list flags, defaults can be overridden on the command line simply by specifying the flag in that location.