Provided by: darcs_2.10.2-1_amd64 
NAME
darcs - an advanced revision control system
SYNOPSIS
darcs command <arguments|[options]>...
Where the commands and their respective arguments are
darcs help [<darcs_command> [darcs_subcommand]]
darcs add <file|directory> ...
darcs remove <file|directory> ...
darcs move <source> ... <destination>
darcs replace <old> <new> <file> ...
darcs revert [file|directory]...
darcs unrevert
darcs whatsnew [file|directory]...
darcs record [file|directory]...
darcs unrecord
darcs amend [file|directory]...
darcs mark-conflicts
darcs tag [tagname]
darcs setpref <pref> <value>
darcs diff [file|directory]...
darcs log [file|directory]...
darcs annotate [file|directory]...
darcs dist
darcs test [[initialization] command]
darcs show contents [file]...
darcs show files [file|directory]...
darcs show index
darcs show pristine
darcs show repo
darcs show authors
darcs show tags
darcs show patch-index-all
darcs show patch-index-files
darcs show patch-index-status
darcs show patch-index-test
darcs pull [repository]...
darcs fetch [repository]...
darcs obliterate
darcs rollback [file|directory]...
darcs push [repository]
darcs send [repository]
darcs apply <patchfile>
darcs clone <repository> [<directory>]
darcs initialize [<directory>]
darcs optimize clean
darcs optimize http
darcs optimize reorder
darcs optimize enable-patch-index
darcs optimize disable-patch-index
darcs optimize compress
darcs optimize uncompress
darcs optimize relink
darcs optimize pristine
darcs optimize upgrade
darcs optimize cache <directory> ...
darcs repair
darcs convert darcs-2 <source> [<destination>]
darcs convert export
darcs convert import [<directory>]
darcs rebase pull [repository]...
darcs rebase apply <patchfile>
darcs rebase suspend
darcs rebase unsuspend
darcs rebase obliterate
darcs rebase log
DESCRIPTION
Darcs is a free, open source revision control system. It is:
• Distributed: Every user has access to the full command set, removing boundaries between server and
client or committer and non‐committers.
• Interactive: Darcs is easy to learn and efficient to use because it asks you questions in response to
simple commands, giving you choices in your work flow. You can choose to record one change in a file,
while ignoring another. As you update from upstream, you can review each patch name, even the full
`diff' for interesting patches.
• Smart: Originally developed by physicist David Roundy, darcs is based on a unique algebra of patches.
This smartness lets you respond to changing demands in ways that would otherwise not be possible.
Learn more about spontaneous branches with darcs.
OPTIONS
Different options are accepted by different Darcs commands. Each command's most important options are
listed in the COMMANDS section. For a full list of all options accepted by a particular command, run
`darcs command --help'.
Selecting Patches:
The --patches option yields patches with names matching an *extended* regular expression. See regex(7)
for details. The --matches option yields patches that match a logical (Boolean) expression: one or more
primitive expressions combined by grouping (parentheses) and the complement (not), conjunction (and) and
disjunction (or) operators. The C notation for logic operators (!, && and ||) can also be used.
- --patches=regex is a synonym for --matches='name regex' - --hash=HASH is a synonym for --matches='hash
HASH' - --from-patch and --to-patch are synonyms for --from-match='name... and --to-match='name... -
--from-patch and --to-match can be unproblematically combined:
`darcs changes --from-patch='html.*documentation' --to-match='date 20040212'`
The following primitive Boolean expressions are supported:
- exact - check a literal string against the patch name. - name - check a regular expression against the
patch name. - author - check a regular expression against the author name. - hunk - check a regular
expression against the contents of a hunk patch. - comment - check a regular expression against the log
message. - hash - match a full hash or a prefix for a patch. - date - match the patch date. - touch -
match file paths for a patch.
Here are some examples:
darcs annotate --summary --match 'exact "Resolve issue17: use dynamic memory allocation."'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'name issue17'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'name "^[Rr]esolve issue17\>"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'author "David Roundy"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'author droundy'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'author droundy@darcs.net'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'hunk "foo = 2"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'hunk "^instance .* Foo where$"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'comment "prevent deadlocks"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'hash c719567e92c3b0ab9eddd5290b705712b8b918ef'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'hash c7195'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "2006-04-02 22:41"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'date "tea time yesterday"'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch src/foo.c'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch src/'
darcs annotate --summary --match 'touch "src/*.(c|h)"'
COMMANDS
darcs help [<darcs_command> [darcs_subcommand]]
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.
Changing and querying the working copy:
darcs add <file|directory> ...
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!
darcs remove <file|directory> ...
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.
darcs move <source> ... <destination>
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`), unless it has already been moved.
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!
darcs replace <old> <new> <file> ...
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. 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 (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, `[^:\n]` could be used to match fields in the passwd(5), where records and fields are
separated by newlines and colons respectively.
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.
Limitations:
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.
Due to limitations in the patch file format, `--token-chars` arguments cannot contain literal
whitespace. For example, `[^ \n\t]` cannot be used to declare all characters except the space, tab
and newline as valid within a word, because it contains a literal space.
Unlike POSIX regex(7) bracket expressions, character classes (such as `[[:alnum:]]`) are NOT
supported by `--token-chars`, and will be silently treated as a simple set of characters.
darcs revert [file|directory]...
The `darcs revert` command discards unrecorded changes the working tree. As with `darcs record`, you
will be asked which hunks (changes) to revert. The `--all` switch can be used to avoid such
prompting. If files or directories are specified, other parts of the working tree are not reverted.
In you accidentally reverted something you wanted to keep (for example, typing `darcs rev -a` instead
of `darcs rec -a`), you can immediately run `darcs unrevert` to restore it. This is only guaranteed
to work if the repository has not changed since `darcs revert` ran.
darcs unrevert
Unrevert is a rescue command in case you accidentally reverted something you wanted to keep (for
example, typing `darcs rev -a` instead of `darcs rec -a`).
This command may fail if the repository has changed since the revert took place. Darcs will ask for
confirmation before executing an interactive command that will DEFINITELY prevent unreversion.
darcs whatsnew [file|directory]...
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. Summary mnemonics are as follows:
* `A f` and `A d/` respectively mean an added file or directory. * `R f` and `R d/` respectively
mean a removed file or directory. * `M f -N +M rP` means a modified file, with `N` lines deleted,
`M`
lines added, and `P` lexical replacements. * `f -> g` means a moved file or directory. * `a f`
and `a d/` respectively mean a new, but unadded, file or
directory, when using `--look-for-adds`.
An exclamation mark (!) as in `R! foo.c`, means the hunk is known to
conflict with a hunk in another patch. The phrase `duplicated`
means the hunk is known to be identical to a hunk in another patch.
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` command; but note that `darcs whatsnew` is faster.
This command exits unsuccessfully (returns a non-zero exit status) if there are no unrecorded
changes.
Copying changes between the working copy and the repository:
darcs record [file|directory]...
The `darcs record` command is used to create a patch from changes in the working tree. If you
specify a set of files and directories, changes to other files will be skipped.
Every patch has a name, an optional description, an author and a date.
Darcs will launch a text editor (see `darcs help environment`) after the interactive selection, to
let you enter the patch name (first line) and the patch description (subsequent lines).
The patch name should be a short sentence that concisely describes the patch, such as "Add error
handling to main event loop." You can supply it in advance with the `-m` option, in which case no
text editor is launched, unless you use the `--edit-long-comment` option.
The patch description is an optional block of free-form text. It is used to supply additional
information that doesn't fit in the patch name. For example, it might include a rationale of WHY the
change was necessary.
A technical difference between patch name and patch description, is that matching with the flag `-p`
is only done on patch names.
Finally, the `--logfile` option allows you to supply a file that already contains the patch name and
patch description. This is useful if a previous record failed and left a `darcs-record-0` file.
Each patch is attributed to its author, usually by email address (for example, `Fred Bloggs
<fred@example.net>`). Darcs looks in several places for this author string: the `--author` option,
the files `_darcs/prefs/author` (in the repository) and `~/.darcs/author` (in your home directory),
and the environment variables `$DARCS_EMAIL` and `$EMAIL`. If none of those exist, Darcs will prompt
you for an author string and write it to `~/.darcs/author`. Note that if you have more than one
email address, you can put them all in `~/.darcs/author`, one author per line. Darcs will still
prompt you for an author, but it allows you to select from the list, or to type in an alternative.
If you want to manually define any extra dependencies for your patch, you can use the `--ask-deps`
flag, and darcs will ask you for the patch's dependencies. Some dependencies may be automatically
inferred from the patch's content and cannot be removed. A patch with specific dependencies can be
empty.
The patch date is generated automatically. It can only be spoofed by using the `--pipe` option.
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
If a test command has been defined with `darcs setpref`, attempting to record a patch will cause the
test command to be run in a clean copy of the working tree (that is, including only recorded
changes). If the test fails, you will be offered to abort the record operation.
The `--set-scripts-executable` option causes scripts to be made executable in the clean copy of the
working tree, prior to running the test. See `darcs clone` for an explanation of the script
heuristic.
If your test command is tediously slow (e.g. `make all`) and you are recording several patches in a
row, you may wish to use `--no-test` to skip all but the final test.
To see some context (unchanged lines) around each change, use the `--unified` option.
darcs unrecord
Unrecord does the opposite of record: it deletes patches from the repository, without changing the
working copy. Deleting patches from the repository makes active changes again which you may record
or revert later. Beware that you should not use this command if there is a possibility that another
user may have already pulled the patch.
darcs amend [file|directory]...
Amend updates a "draft" patch with additions or improvements, resulting in a single "finished" patch.
By default `amend` proposes you to record additional changes. If instead you want to remove changes,
use the flag `--unrecord`.
When recording a draft patch, it is a good idea to start the name with `DRAFT:`. When done, remove it
with `darcs amend --edit-long-comment`. Alternatively, to change the patch name without starting an
editor, use the `--name`/`-m` flag:
darcs amend --match 'name "DRAFT: foo"' --name 'foo2'
Like `darcs record`, if you call amend with files as arguments, you will only be asked about changes
to those files. So to amend a patch to foo.c with improvements in bar.c, you would run:
darcs amend --match 'touch foo.c' bar.c
It is usually a bad idea to amend another developer's patch. To make amend only ask about your own
patches by default, you can add something like `amend match David Roundy` to `~/.darcs/defaults`,
where `David Roundy` is your name.
darcs mark-conflicts
Darcs requires human guidance to unify changes to the same part of a source file. When a conflict
first occurs, darcs will add the initial state and both choices to the working tree, delimited by the
markers `v v v`, `=====`, `* * *` and `^ ^ ^`, as follows:
v v v v v v v
Initial state.
=============
First choice.
*************
Second choice.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
However, you might revert or manually delete these markers without actually resolving the conflict.
In this case, `darcs mark-conflicts` is useful to show where are the unresolved conflicts. It is
also useful if `darcs apply` is called with `--apply-conflicts`, where conflicts aren't marked
initially.
Unless you use the `--dry-run` flag, any unrecorded changes to the working tree WILL be lost forever
when you run this command! You will be prompted for confirmation before this takes place.
Direct modification of the repository:
darcs tag [tagname]
The `darcs tag` command names the current repository state, so that it can easily be referred to
later. Every *important* state should be tagged; in particular it is good practice to tag each
stable release with a number or codename. Advice on release numbering can be found at
<http://producingoss.com/en/development-cycle.html>.
To reproduce the state of a repository `R` as at tag `t`, use the command `darcs clone --tag t R`.
The command `darcs show tags` lists all tags in the current repository.
Tagging also provides significant performance benefits: when Darcs reaches a shared tag that depends
on all antecedent patches, it can simply stop processing.
Like normal patches, a tag has a name, an author, a timestamp and an optional long description, but
it does not change the working tree. A tag can have any name, but it is generally best to pick a
naming scheme and stick to it.
By default a tag names the entire repository state at the time the tag is created. If the --ask-deps
option is used, the patches to include as part of the tag can be explicitly selected.
The `darcs tag` command accepts the `--pipe` option, which behaves as described in `darcs record`.
darcs setpref <pref> <value>
When working on project with multiple repositories and contributors, it is sometimes desirable for a
preference to be set consistently project-wide. This is achieved by treating a preference set with
`darcs setpref` as an unrecorded change, which can then be recorded and then treated like any other
patch.
Valid preferences are:
* test -- a shell command that runs regression tests * predist -- a shell command to run before
`darcs dist' * boringfile -- the path to a version-controlled boring file * binariesfile -- the path
to a version-controlled binaries file
For example, a project using GNU autotools, with a `make test` target to perform regression tests,
might enable Darcs' integrated regression testing with the following command:
darcs setpref test 'autoconf && ./configure && make && make test'
Note that merging is not currently implemented for preferences: if two patches attempt to set the
same preference, the last patch applied to the repository will always take precedence. This is
considered a low-priority bug, because preferences are seldom set.
Querying the repository:
darcs diff [file|directory]...
The `darcs diff` command compares two versions of the working tree of the current repository.
Without options, the pristine (recorded) and unrecorded working trees are compared. This is
lower-level than the `darcs whatsnew` command, since it outputs a line-by-line diff, and it is also
slower. As with `darcs whatsnew`, if you specify files or directories, changes to other files are
not listed. The command always uses an external diff utility.
With the `--patch` option, the comparison will be made between working trees with and without that
patch. Patches *after* the selected patch are not present in either of the compared working trees.
The `--from-patch` and `--to-patch` options allow the set of patches in the `old' and `new' working
trees to be specified separately.
The associated tag and match options are also understood, e.g. `darcs diff --from-tag 1.0 --to-tag
1.1`. All these options assume an ordering of the patch set, so results may be affected by
operations such as `darcs optimize --reorder`.
diff(1) is called with the arguments `-rN`. The `--unified` option causes `-u` to be passed to
diff(1). An additional argument can be passed using `--diff-opts`, such as `--diff-opts=-ud` or
`--diff-opts=-wU9`.
The `--diff-command` option can be used to specify an alternative utility, such as meld (GNOME) or
opendiff (OS X). Arguments may be included, separated by whitespace. The value is not interpreted
by a shell, so shell constructs cannot be used. The arguments %1 and %2 MUST be included, these are
substituted for the two working trees being compared. If this option is used, `--diff-opts` is
ignored.
darcs log [file|directory]...
The `darcs log` command lists the patches that constitute the current repository or, with `--repo`, a
remote repository. Without options or arguments, ALL patches will be listed.
When given one or more files or directories as arguments, only patches which affect those files or
directories are listed. This includes patches that happened to files before they were moved or
renamed.
When given a `--from-tag`, `--from-patch` or `--from-match`, only patches since that tag or patch are
listed. Similarly, the `--to-tag`, `--to-patch` and `--to-match` options restrict the list to older
patches.
The `--last` and `--max-count` options both limit the number of patches listed. The former applies
BEFORE other filters, whereas the latter applies AFTER other filters. For example `darcs log foo.c
--max-count 3` will print the last three patches that affect foo.c, whereas `darcs log --last 3
foo.c` will, of the last three patches, print only those that affect foo.c.
Three output formats exist. The default is `--human-readable`. You can also select `--context`,
which is the internal format (as seen in patch bundles) that can be re-read by Darcs (e.g. `darcs
clone --context`).
Finally, there is `--xml-output`, which emits valid XML... unless a the patch metadata (author, name
or description) contains a non-ASCII character and was recorded in a non-UTF8 locale.
Note that while the `--context` flag may be used in conjunction with `--xml-output` or
`--human-readable`, in neither case will darcs clone be able to read the output. On the other hand,
sufficient information WILL be output for a knowledgeable human to recreate the current state of the
repository.
darcs annotate [file|directory]...
The `darcs annotate` command provides two unrelated operations. When called on a file, it will find
the patch that last modified each line in that file. When called on a patch (e.g. using `--patch`),
it will print the internal representation of that patch.
The `--summary` option will result in a summarized patch annotation, similar to `darcs whatsnew`. It
has no effect on file annotations.
By default, output is in a human-readable format. The `--machine-readable` option can be used to
generate output for machine postprocessing.
darcs dist
`darcs dist` creates a compressed archive in the repository's root directory, containing the recorded
state of the working tree (unrecorded changes and the `_darcs` directory are excluded). The command
accepts matchers to create an archive of some past repository state, for instance `--tag`.
By default, the archive (and the top-level directory within the archive) has the same name as the
repository, but this can be overridden with the `--dist-name` option.
If a predist command is set (see `darcs setpref`), that command will be run on the recorded state
prior to archiving. For example, autotools projects would set it to `autoconf && automake`.
If `--zip` is used, matchers and the predist command are ignored.
darcs test [[initialization] command]
Run test on the current recorded state of the repository. Given no arguments, it uses the default
repository test (see `darcs setpref`). Given one argument, it treats it as a test command. Given
two arguments, the first is an initialization command and the second is the test (meaning the exit
code of the first command is not taken into account to determine success of the test). If given the
`--linear` or `--bisect` flags, it tries to find the most recent version in the repository which
passes a test.
`--linear` does linear search starting from head, and moving away from head. This strategy is best
when the test runs very quickly or the patch you're seeking is near the head.
`--bisect` does binary search. This strategy is best when the test runs very slowly or the patch
you're seeking is likely to be in the repository's distant past.
`--backoff` starts searching from head, skipping further and further into the past until the test
succeeds. It then does a binary search on a subset of those skipped patches. This strategy works
well unless the patch you're seeking is in the repository's distant past.
Under the assumption that failure is monotonous, `--linear` and `--bisect` produce the same result.
(Monotonous means that when moving away from head, the test result changes only once from "fail" to
"ok".) If failure is not monotonous, any one of the patches that break the test is found at random.
darcs show contents [file]...
Show contents can be used to display an earlier version of some file(s). If you give show contents
no version arguments, it displays the recorded version of the file(s).
darcs show files [file|directory]...
The `darcs show files` command lists those files and directories in the working tree that are under
version control. This command is primarily for scripting purposes; end users will probably want
`darcs whatsnew --summary`.
A file is "pending" if it has been added but not recorded. By default, pending files (and
directories) are listed; the `--no-pending` option prevents this.
By default `darcs show files` lists both files and directories, but the alias `darcs show manifest`
only lists files. The `--files`, `--directories`, `--no-files` and `--no-directories` modify this
behaviour.
By default entries are one-per-line (i.e. newline separated). This can cause problems if the files
themselves contain newlines or other control characters. To get around this, the `--null` option
uses the null character instead. The script interpreting output from this command needs to
understand this idiom; `xargs -0` is such a command.
For example, to list version-controlled files by size:
darcs show files -0 | xargs -0 ls -ldS
darcs show index
The `darcs show index` command lists all version-controlled files and directories along with their
hashes as stored in `_darcs/index`. For files, the fields correspond to file size, sha256 of the
current file content and the filename.
darcs show pristine
The `darcs show pristine` command lists all version-controlled files and directories along with the
hashes of their pristine copies. For files, the fields correspond to file size, sha256 of the
pristine file content and the filename.
darcs show repo
The `darcs show repo` command displays statistics about the current repository, allowing third-party
scripts to access this information without inspecting `_darcs` directly (and without breaking when
the `_darcs` format changes).
By default, the number of patches is shown. If this data isn't needed, use `--no-files` to
accelerate this command from O(n) to O(1).
By default, output is in a human-readable format. The `--xml-output` option can be used to generate
output for machine postprocessing.
darcs show authors
The `darcs show authors` command lists the authors of the current repository, sorted by the number of
patches contributed. With the `--verbose` option, this command simply lists the author of each patch
(without aggregation or sorting).
An author's name or email address may change over time. To tell Darcs when multiple author strings
refer to the same individual, create an `.authorspellings` file in the root of the working tree.
Each line in this file begins with an author's canonical name and address, and may be followed by a
comma separated list of extended regular expressions. Blank lines and lines beginning with two
hyphens are ignored. The format of `.authorspelling` can be described by this pattern:
name <address> [, regexp ]*
There are some pitfalls concerning special characters: Whitespaces are stripped, if you need space in
regexp use [ ]. Because comma serves as a separator you have to escape it if you want it in regexp.
Note that `.authorspelling` use extended regular expressions so +, ? and so on are metacharacters and
you need to escape them to be interpreted literally.
Any patch with an author string that matches the canonical address or any of the associated regexps
is considered to be the work of that author. All matching is case-insensitive and partial (it can
match a substring). Use ^,$ to match the whole string in regexps
Currently this canonicalization step is done only in `darcs show authors`. Other commands, such as
`darcs log` use author strings verbatim.
An example `.authorspelling` file is:
-- This is a comment.
Fred Nurk <fred@example.com>
John Snagge <snagge@bbc.co.uk>, John, snagge@, js@(si|mit).edu
Chuck Jones\, Jr. <chuck@pobox.com>, cj\+user@example.com
darcs show tags
The tags command writes a list of all tags in the repository to standard output.
Tab characters (ASCII character 9) in tag names are changed to spaces for better interoperability
with shell tools. A warning is printed if this happens.
darcs show patch-index-all
The `darcs show patch-index all' command lists all information in the patch index
darcs show patch-index-files
The `darcs show patch-index files' command lists all current files registered in the patch index
darcs show patch-index-status
The `darcs show patch-index-status' reports if the patch index is in sync, out of sync, or does not
exist
darcs show patch-index-test
The `darcs show patch-index-test' tests patch index
Copying patches between repositories with working copy update:
darcs pull [repository]...
Pull is used to bring patches 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.
The default (`--union`) behavior is to pull any patches that are in any of the specified
repositories. If you specify the `--intersection` flag, darcs will only pull those patches which are
present in all source repositories. 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.
If `--reorder` is supplied, the set of patches that exist only in the current repository is brought
at the top of the current history. This will work even if there are no new patches to pull.
See `darcs help apply` for detailed description of many options.
darcs fetch [repository]...
Fetch is similar to `pull` except that it does not apply any patches to the current repository.
Instead, it generates a patch bundle that you can apply later with `apply`.
Fetch's behaviour is essentially similar to pull's, so please consult the help of `pull` to know
more.
darcs obliterate
Obliterate completely removes recorded patches from your local repository. The changes will be undone
in your working copy and the patches will not be shown in your changes list anymore. Beware that you
can lose precious code by obliterating!
One way to save obliterated patches is to use the -O flag. A patch bundle will be created locally,
that you will be able to apply later to your repository with `darcs apply`.
darcs rollback [file|directory]...
Rollback is used to undo the effects of some changes from patches in the repository. The selected
changes are undone in your working copy, but the repository is left unchanged. First you are offered
a choice of which patches to undo, then which changes within the patches to undo.
Before doing `rollback`, you may want to temporarily undo the changes of your working copy (if there
are) and save them for later use. To do so, you can run `revert`, then run `rollback`, record a
patch, and run `unrevert` to restore the saved changes into your working copy.
darcs push [repository]
Push is the opposite of pull. Push allows you to copy patches from the current repository into
another repository.
If you give the `--apply-as` flag, darcs will use sudo to apply the patches 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.
Darcs push will by default compress the patch data before sending it to a remote location via ssh.
This works as long as the remote darcs is not older than version 2.5. If you get errors that indicate
a corrupt patch bundle, you should try again with the `--no-compress` option to send the data in
un-compressed form (which is a lot slower for large patches, but should always work).
darcs send [repository]
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
saved to a file, although you may directly send it by mail.
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 provide the `--mail` flag, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 %<
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.
darcs apply <patchfile>
The `darcs apply` command takes a patch bundle and attempts to insert it into the current repository.
In addition to invoking it directly on bundles created by `darcs send`, it is used internally by
`darcs push` on the remote end of an SSH connection.
If no file is supplied, the bundle is read from standard input.
If given an email instead of a patch bundle, Darcs will look for the bundle as a MIME attachment to
that email. Currently this will fail if the MIME boundary is rewritten, such as in Courier and
Mail.app.
If the `--reply noreply@example.net` option is used, and the bundle is attached to an email, Darcs
will send a report (indicating success or failure) to the sender of the bundle (the `To` field). The
argument to noreply is the address the report will appear to originate FROM.
The `--cc` option will cause the report to be CC'd to another address, for example `--cc
reports@lists.example.net,admin@lists.example.net`. Using `--cc` without `--reply` is undefined.
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 %<
If gpg(1) is installed, you can use `--verify pubring.gpg` to reject bundles that aren't signed by a
key in `pubring.gpg`.
If `--test` is supplied and a test is defined (see `darcs setpref`), the bundle will be rejected if
the test fails after applying it. In that case, the rejection email from `--reply` will include the
test output.
A patch bundle may introduce unresolved conflicts with existing patches or with the working tree. By
default, Darcs will add conflict markers (see `darcs mark-conflicts`).
The `--external-merge` option lets you resolve these conflicts using an external merge tool. In the
option, `%a` is replaced with the common ancestor (merge base), `%1` with the first version, `%2`
with the second version, and `%o` with the path where your resolved content should go. For example,
to use the xxdiff visual merge tool you'd specify: `--external-merge='xxdiff -m -O -M %o %1 %a %2'`
The `--allow-conflicts` option will skip conflict marking; this is useful when you want to treat a
repository as just a bunch of patches, such as using `darcs pull --union` to download of your
co-workers patches before going offline.
This can mess up unrecorded changes in the working tree, forcing you to resolve the conflict
immediately. To simply reject bundles that introduce unresolved conflicts, using the
`--dont-allow-conflicts` option. Making this the default in push-based workflows is strongly
recommended.
Unlike most Darcs commands, `darcs apply` defaults to `--all`. Use the `--interactive` option to
pick which patches to apply from a bundle.
darcs clone <repository> [<directory>]
Clone creates a 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.
When cloning locally, Darcs automatically uses hard linking where possible. As well as saving time
and space, this enables to move or delete the original repository without affecting the copy. Hard
linking requires that the copy be on the same filesystem as the original repository, and that the
filesystem support hard linking. This includes NTFS, HFS+ and all general-purpose Unix filesystems
(such as ext, UFS and ZFS). FAT does not support hard links.
When cloning from a remote location, Darcs will look for and attempt to use packs created by `darcs
optimize http` in the remote repository. Packs are single big files that can be downloaded instead
of many little files, which makes cloning faster over HTTP.
Darcs clone will not copy unrecorded changes to the source repository's working tree.
You can copy a repository to a ssh url, in which case the new repository will always be complete.
It is often desirable to make a copy of a repository that excludes some patches. For example, if
releases are tagged then `darcs clone --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 log --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.
The `--set-scripts-executable` option causes scripts to be made executable in the working tree. A
script is any file that starts with a shebang ("#!").
Administrating repositories:
darcs initialize [<directory>]
The `darcs initialize` command turns the current directory into a Darcs repository. Any existing
files and subdirectories become UNSAVED changes: record them with `darcs record --look-for-adds`.
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.
By default, patches of the new repository are in the darcs-2 semantics. However it is possible to
create a repository in darcs-1 semantics with the flag `--darcs-1`, althought this is not recommended
except for sharing patches with a project that uses patches in the darcs-1 semantics.
Initialize is commonly abbreviated to `init`.
darcs optimize clean
This command deletes obsolete files within the repository.
darcs optimize http
Using this option creates 'repository packs' that could dramatically speed up performance when a user
does a `darcs clone` of the repository over HTTP. To make use of packs, the clients must have a darcs
of at least version 2.10.
darcs optimize reorder
This command moves recent patches (those not included in the latest tag) to the "front", reducing the
amount that a typical remote command needs to download. It should also reduce the CPU time needed
for some operations.
darcs optimize enable-patch-index
Build the patch index, an internal data structure that accelerates commands that need to know what
patches touch a given file. Such as annotate and log.
darcs optimize disable-patch-index
Delete and stop maintaining the patch index from the repository.
darcs optimize compress
By default patches are compressed with zlib (RFC 1951) to reduce storage (and download) size. In
exceptional circumstances, it may be preferable to avoid compression. In this case the
`--dont-compress` option can be used (e.g. with `darcs record`) to avoid compression.
The `darcs optimize uncompress` and `darcs optimize compress` commands can be used to ensure existing
patches in the current repository are respectively uncompressed or compressed.
darcs optimize uncompress
By default patches are compressed with zlib (RFC 1951) to reduce storage (and download) size. In
exceptional circumstances, it may be preferable to avoid compression. In this case the
`--dont-compress` option can be used (e.g. with `darcs record`) to avoid compression.
The `darcs optimize uncompress` and `darcs optimize compress` commands can be used to ensure existing
patches in the current repository are respectively uncompressed or compressed.
darcs optimize relink
The `darcs optimize relink` command hard-links patches that the current repository has in common with
its peers. Peers are those repositories listed in `_darcs/prefs/sources`, or defined with the
`--sibling` option (which can be used multiple times).
Darcs uses hard-links automatically, so this command is rarely needed. It is most useful if you used
`cp -r` instead of `darcs clone` to copy a repository, or if you pulled the same patch from a remote
repository into multiple local repositories.
darcs optimize pristine
This command updates the format of `_darcs/pristine.hashed/`, which was different before darcs 2.3.1.
darcs optimize upgrade
Convert old-fashioned repositories to the current default hashed format.
darcs optimize cache <directory> ...
This command deletes obsolete files within the global cache. It takes one or more directories as
arguments, and recursively searches all repositories within these directories. Then it deletes all
files in the global cache not belonging to these repositories. When no directory is given, it
searches repositories in the user's home directory.
It also automatically migrates the global cache to the (default) bucketed format.
darcs repair
The `darcs repair` command attempts to fix corruption in the current repository. Currently it can
only repair damage to the pristine tree, which is where most corruption occurs. This command
rebuilds a pristine tree by applying successively the patches in the repository to an empty tree.
The flag `--dry-run` make this operation read-only, making darcs exit unsuccessfully (with a non-zero
exit status) if the rebuilt pristine is different from the current pristine.
darcs convert darcs-2 <source> [<destination>]
This command converts a repository that uses the old patch semantics `darcs-1` to a new repository
with current `darcs-2` semantics.
WARNING: the repository produced by this command is not understood by Darcs 1.x, and patches cannot
be exchanged between repositories in darcs-1 and darcs-2 formats.
Furthermore, repositories created by different invocations of this command SHOULD NOT exchange
patches.
darcs convert export
This command enables you to export darcs repositories into git.
For a one-time export you can use the recipe:
$ cd repo
$ git init ../mirror
$ darcs convert export | (cd ../mirror && git fast-import)
For incremental export using marksfiles:
$ cd repo
$ git init ../mirror
$ touch ../mirror/git.marks
$ darcs convert export --read-marks darcs.marks --write-marks darcs.marks
| (cd ../mirror && git fast-import --import-marks=git.marks --export-marks=git.marks)
In the case of incremental export, be careful to never amend, delete or reorder patches in the source
darcs repository.
Also, be aware that exporting a darcs repo to git will not be exactly faithful in terms of history if
the darcs repository contains conflicts.
Limitations:
* Empty directories are not supported by the fast-export protocol. * Unicode filenames are currently
not correctly handled.
See http://bugs.darcs.net/issue2359 .
darcs convert import [<directory>]
This command imports git repositories into new darcs repositories. Further options are accepted (see
`darcs help init`).
To convert a git repo to a new darcs one you may run:
$ (cd gitrepo && git fast-export --all) | darcs convert import darcsmirror
WARNING: git repositories with branches will produce weird results,
use at your own risks.
Incremental import with marksfiles is currently not supported.
darcs rebase pull [repository]...
Copy and apply patches from another repository, suspending any local patches that conflict.
darcs rebase apply <patchfile>
Apply a patch bundle, suspending any local patches that conflict.
darcs rebase suspend
Select patches to move into a suspended state at the end of the repo.
darcs rebase unsuspend
Selected patches to restore from a suspended state to the end of the repo.
darcs rebase obliterate
Obliterate a patch that is currently suspended.
darcs rebase log
List the currently suspended changes.
ENVIRONMENT
HOME and APPDATA
Per-user preferences are set in $HOME/.darcs (on Unix) or %APPDATA%/darcs (on Windows). This is also the
default location of the cache.
DARCS_EDITOR, DARCSEDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR
To edit a patch description of email comment, Darcs will invoke an external editor. Your preferred
editor can be set as any of the environment variables $DARCS_EDITOR, $DARCSEDITOR, $VISUAL or $EDITOR.
If none of these are set, editor(1) is used.
DARCS_PAGER and PAGER
Darcs will sometimes invoke a pager if it deems output to be too long to fit onscreen. Darcs will use
the pager specified by $DARCS_PAGER or $PAGER. If neither are set, pager(1) will be used.
DARCS_DONT_COLOR, DARCS_ALWAYS_COLOR, DARCS_ALTERNATIVE_COLOR and DARCS_DO_COLOR_LINES
If the terminal understands ANSI color escape sequences, darcs will highlight certain keywords and
delimiters when printing patches. This can be turned off by setting the environment variable
DARCS_DONT_COLOR to 1. If you use a pager that happens to understand ANSI colors, like `less -R`, darcs
can be forced always to highlight the output by setting DARCS_ALWAYS_COLOR to 1. If you can't see colors
you can set DARCS_ALTERNATIVE_COLOR to 1, and darcs will use ANSI codes for bold and reverse video
instead of colors. In addition, there is an extra-colorful mode, which is not enabled by default, which
can be activated with DARCS_DO_COLOR_LINES
DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_TRAILING_SPACES and DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_TRAILING_CR
By default darcs will escape (by highlighting if possible) any kind of spaces at the end of lines when
showing patch contents. If you don't want this you can turn it off by setting
DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_TRAILING_SPACES to 1. A special case exists for only carriage returns:
DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_TRAILING_CR
DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_ANYTHING, DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_ISPRINT, DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_8BIT, DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_EXTRA and
DARCS_ESCAPE_EXTRA
Darcs needs to escape certain characters when printing patch contents to a terminal. Characters like
backspace can otherwise hide patch content from the user, and other character sequences can even in some
cases redirect commands to the shell if the terminal allows it.
By default darcs will only allow printable 7-bit ASCII characters (including space), and the two control
characters tab and newline. All other octets are printed in quoted form (as `^<control letter>` or `\<hex
code>`).
Darcs has some limited support for locales. If the system's locale is a single-byte character encoding,
like the Latin encodings, you can set the environment variable DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_ISPRINT to 1 and darcs
will display all the printables in the current system locale instead of just the ASCII ones. NOTE: This
curently does not work on some architectures if darcs is compiled with GHC 6.4 or later. Some non-ASCII
control characters might be printed and can possibly spoof the terminal.
For multi-byte character encodings things are less smooth. UTF-8 will work if you set
DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_8BIT to 1, but non-printables outside the 7-bit ASCII range are no longer escaped.
E.g., the extra control characters from Latin-1 might leave your terminal at the mercy of the patch
contents. Space characters outside the 7-bit ASCII range are no longer recognized and will not be
properly escaped at line endings.
As a last resort you can set DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_ANYTHING to 1. Then everything that doesn't flip code sets
should work, and so will all the bells and whistles in your terminal. This environment variable can also
be handy if you pipe the output to a pager or external filter that knows better than darcs how to handle
your encoding. Note that all escaping, including the special escaping of any line ending spaces, will be
turned off by this setting.
There are two environment variables you can set to explicitly tell darcs to not escape or escape octets.
They are DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_EXTRA and DARCS_ESCAPE_EXTRA. Their values should be strings consisting of the
verbatim octets in question. The do-escapes take precedence over the dont-escapes. Space characters are
still escaped at line endings though. The special environment variable DARCS_DONT_ESCAPE_TRAILING_CR
turns off escaping of carriage return last on the line (DOS style).
DARCS_TMPDIR and TMPDIR
Darcs often creates temporary directories. For example, the `darcs diff` command creates two for the
working trees to be diffed. By default temporary directories are created in /tmp, or if that doesn't
exist, in _darcs (within the current repo). This can be overridden by specifying some other directory in
the file _darcs/prefs/tmpdir or the environment variable $DARCS_TMPDIR or $TMPDIR.
DARCS_KEEP_TMPDIR
If the environment variable DARCS_KEEP_TMPDIR is defined, darcs will not remove the temporary directories
it creates. This is intended primarily for debugging Darcs itself, but it can also be useful, for
example, to determine why your test preference (see `darcs setpref`) is failing when you run `darcs
record`, but working when run manually.
DARCS_EMAIL and EMAIL
Each patch is attributed to its author, usually by email address (for example, `Fred Bloggs
<fred@example.net>`). Darcs looks in several places for this author string: the `--author` option, the
files `_darcs/prefs/author` (in the repository) and `~/.darcs/author` (in your home directory), and the
environment variables `$DARCS_EMAIL` and `$EMAIL`. If none of those exist, Darcs will prompt you for an
author string and write it to `~/.darcs/author`. Note that if you have more than one email address, you
can put them all in `~/.darcs/author`, one author per line. Darcs will still prompt you for an author,
but it allows you to select from the list, or to type in an alternative.
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.
DARCS_SLOPPY_LOCKS
If on some filesystems you get an error of the kind:
darcs: takeLock [...]: atomic_create [...]: unsupported operation
you may want to try to export DARCS_SLOPPY_LOCKS=True.
DARCS_SSH
Repositories of the form [user@]host:[dir] are taken to be remote repositories, which Darcs accesses with
the external program ssh(1).
The environment variable $DARCS_SSH can be used to specify an alternative SSH client. Arguments may be
included, separated by whitespace. The value is not interpreted by a shell, so shell constructs cannot
be used; in particular, it is not possible for the program name to contain whitespace by using quoting or
escaping.
DARCS_SCP and DARCS_SFTP
When reading from a remote repository, Darcs will attempt to run `darcs transfer-mode` on the remote
host. This will fail if the remote host only has Darcs 1 installed, doesn't have Darcs installed at all,
or only allows SFTP.
If transfer-mode fails, Darcs will fall back on scp(1) and sftp(1). The commands invoked can be
customized with the environment variables $DARCS_SCP and $DARCS_SFTP respectively, which behave like
$DARCS_SSH. If the remote end allows only sftp, try setting DARCS_SCP=sftp.
SSH_PORT
If this environment variable is set, it will be used as the port number for all SSH calls made by Darcs
(when accessing remote repositories over SSH). This is useful if your SSH server does not run on the
default port, and your SSH client does not support ssh_config(5). OpenSSH users will probably prefer to
put something like `Host *.example.net Port 443` into their ~/.ssh/config file.
HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, FTP_PROXY, ALL_PROXY and NO_PROXY
If Darcs was built with libcurl, the environment variables HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and FTP_PROXY can be
set to the URL of a proxy in the form
[protocol://]<host>[:port]
In which case libcurl will use the proxy for the associated protocol (HTTP, HTTPS and FTP). The
environment variable ALL_PROXY can be used to set a single proxy for all libcurl requests.
If the environment variable NO_PROXY is a comma-separated list of host names, access to those hosts will
bypass proxies defined by the above variables. For example, it is quite common to avoid proxying requests
to machines on the local network with
NO_PROXY=localhost,*.localdomain
For compatibility with lynx et al, lowercase equivalents of these environment variables (e.g.
$http_proxy) are also understood and are used in preference to the uppercase versions.
If Darcs was not built with libcurl, all these environment variables are silently ignored, and there is
no way to use a web proxy.
DARCS_PROXYUSERPWD
If Darcs was built with libcurl, and you are using a web proxy that requires authentication, you can set
the $DARCS_PROXYUSERPWD environment variable to the username and password expected by the proxy,
separated by a colon. This environment variable is silently ignored if Darcs was not built with libcurl.
DARCS_GET_FOO and DARCS_APPLY_FOO
When trying to access a repository with a URL beginning foo://, darcs will invoke the program specified
by the DARCS_GET_FOO environment variable (if defined) to download each file, and the command specified
by the DARCS_APPLY_FOO environment variable (if defined) when pushing to a foo:// URL.
This method overrides all other ways of getting `foo://xxx` URLs.
Note that each command should be constructed so that it sends the downloaded content to STDOUT, and the
next argument to it should be the URL. Here are some examples that should work for DARCS_GET_HTTP:
fetch -q -o -
curl -s -f
lynx -source
wget -q -O -
Apart from such toy examples, it is likely that you will need to manipulate the argument before passing
it to the actual fetcher program. For example, consider the problem of getting read access to a
repository on a CIFS (SMB) share without mount privileges:
export DARCS_GET_SMB='smbclient -c get'
darcs get smb://fs/twb/Desktop/hello-world
The above command will not work for several reasons. Firstly, Darcs will pass it an argument beginning
with `smb:`, which smbclient does not understand. Secondly, the host and share `//fs/twb` must be
presented as a separate argument to the path `Desktop/hello-world`. Thirdly, smbclient requires that
`get` and the path be a single argument (including a space), rather than two separate arguments.
Finally, smbclient's `get` command writes the file to disk, while Darcs expects it to be printed to
standard output.
In principle, we could get around such problems by making the variable contain a shell script,
unfortunately, Darcs splits the command on whitespace and does not understand quotation or escaping.
Therefore, we instead need to put commands in separate, executable scripts.
Continuing our smbclient example, we create an executable script `~/.darcs/libexec/get_smb` with the
following contents:
#!/bin/bash -e
IFS=/ read host share file <<<'${1#smb://}'
smbclient //$host/$share -c 'get $file -'
And at last we can say
export DARCS_GET_SMB=~/.darcs/libexec/get_smb
darcs get smb://fs/twb/Desktop/hello-world
The APPLY command will be called with a darcs patchfile piped into its standard input.
DARCS_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT
Set the maximum time in seconds that darcs allows and connection to take. If the variable is not
specified the default are 30 seconds. This option only works with curl.
FILES
_darcs/prefs/binaries
This file contains a list of extended regular expressions, one per line. A file path matching any of
these expressions is assumed to contain binary data (not text). The entries in ~/.darcs/binaries (if it
exists) supplement those in this file.
Blank lines, and lines beginning with an octothorpe (#) are ignored. See regex(7) for a description of
extended regular expressions.
_darcs/prefs/boring
This file contains a list of extended regular expressions, one per line. A file path matching any of
these expressions will be filtered out during `darcs add', or when the `--look-for-adds' flag is passed
to `darcs whatsnew' and `record'. The entries in ~/.darcs/boring (if it exists) supplement those in this
file.
Blank lines, and lines beginning with an octothorpe (#) are ignored. See regex(7) for a description of
extended regular expressions.
BUGS
At http://bugs.darcs.net/ you can find a list of known bugs in Darcs. Unknown bugs can be reported at that site (after creating an account) or by emailing the report to bugs@darcs.net.
SEE ALSO
The Darcs website provides a lot of additional information. It can be found at http://darcs.net/
LICENSE
Darcs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
later version.
2.10.2 (release) DARCS(1)