--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/mercurial/help/patterns.txt	Tue Dec 01 16:06:10 2009 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+Mercurial accepts several notations for identifying one or more files
+at a time.
+
+By default, Mercurial treats filenames as shell-style extended glob
+patterns.
+
+Alternate pattern notations must be specified explicitly.
+
+To use a plain path name without any pattern matching, start it with
+``path:``. These path names must completely match starting at the
+current repository root.
+
+To use an extended glob, start a name with ``glob:``. Globs are rooted
+at the current directory; a glob such as ``*.c`` will only match files
+in the current directory ending with ``.c``.
+
+The supported glob syntax extensions are ``**`` to match any string
+across path separators and ``{a,b}`` to mean "a or b".
+
+To use a Perl/Python regular expression, start a name with ``re:``.
+Regexp pattern matching is anchored at the root of the repository.
+
+Plain examples::
+
+  path:foo/bar   a name bar in a directory named foo in the root
+                 of the repository
+  path:path:name a file or directory named "path:name"
+
+Glob examples::
+
+  glob:*.c       any name ending in ".c" in the current directory
+  *.c            any name ending in ".c" in the current directory
+  **.c           any name ending in ".c" in any subdirectory of the
+                 current directory including itself.
+  foo/*.c        any name ending in ".c" in the directory foo
+  foo/**.c       any name ending in ".c" in any subdirectory of foo
+                 including itself.
+
+Regexp examples::
+
+  re:.*\.c$      any name ending in ".c", anywhere in the repository