--- a/mercurial/localrepo.py	Tue May 11 20:13:52 2010 +0200
+++ b/mercurial/localrepo.py	Mon Dec 07 12:31:45 2009 +0200
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
 
     def __init__(self, baseui, path=None, create=0):
         repo.repository.__init__(self)
-        self.root = os.path.realpath(path)
+        self.root = os.path.realpath(util.expandpath(path))
         self.path = os.path.join(self.root, ".hg")
         self.origroot = path
         self.opener = util.opener(self.path)