help: backout f3c4edfd35e1 (mark boolean flags with [no-] in help) for now The ability to negate any boolean flags itself is great, but I think we are not ready to expose the help side of it yet. First, while there exist a handful of such flags whose default value can be changed (eg: git diff, patchwork confirmation), there is only a few of them. The users who benefit the most from this change are alias users and large installation that can deploy extension to change behavior (eg: facebook tweakdefault). So the majority of user who will be affected by a large change to command help that is not yet relevant to them. (I expect this to become relevant when ui.progressive start to exists). Below is an example of the impact of the new help on 'hg help diff': -r --rev REV [+] revision -c --change REV change made by revision -a --[no-]text treat all files as text -g --[no-]git use git extended diff format --[no-]nodates omit dates from diff headers --[no-]noprefix omit a/ and b/ prefixes from filenames -p --[no-]show-function show which function each change is in --[no-]reverse produce a diff that undoes the changes -w --[no-]ignore-all-space ignore white space when comparing lines -b --[no-]ignore-space-change ignore changes in the amount of white space -B --[no-]ignore-blank-lines ignore changes whose lines are all blank -U --unified NUM number of lines of context to show --[no-]stat output diffstat-style summary of changes --root DIR produce diffs relative to subdirectory -I --include PATTERN [+] include names matching the given patterns -X --exclude PATTERN [+] exclude names matching the given patterns -S --[no-]subrepos recurse into subrepositories Another issue with the current state of help, the default value for the flag is not conveyed to the user. For example in the 'backout' help, there is no real distinction between "--[no-]backup" (default to True) and "--[no-]keep" (default) to False: --[no-]backup no backups --[no-]keep do not modify working directory during strip In addition, I've discussed with Augie Fackler and the last batch of the work on this have burned him out quite some. Therefore he is not intending to perform any more work on this topic. Quoting him, he would rather see the help part backed out than spending more time on it. I do not think we are ready to expose this to users in 4.0 (freeze in a week), especially because we cannot expect quick improvement on these aspect as this topic no longer have an owner. We should be able to reintroduce that change in the future when someone get back on it and the main issues are solves: * Introduction of ui.progressive makes it relevant for a majority of user, * Current default value are efficiently conveyed to the user. (In addition, the excerpt from diff help show that we still have some issue with some negative option like '--nodates' so further improvement are probably welcome there.)

Set up a repo

  $ cat <<EOF >> $HGRCPATH
  > [ui]
  > interactive = true
  > [extensions]
  > record =
  > EOF

  $ hg init a
  $ cd a

Record help

  $ hg record -h
  hg record [OPTION]... [FILE]...
  
  interactively select changes to commit
  
      If a list of files is omitted, all changes reported by 'hg status' will be
      candidates for recording.
  
      See 'hg help dates' for a list of formats valid for -d/--date.
  
      You will be prompted for whether to record changes to each modified file,
      and for files with multiple changes, for each change to use. For each
      query, the following responses are possible:
  
        y - record this change
        n - skip this change
        e - edit this change manually
  
        s - skip remaining changes to this file
        f - record remaining changes to this file
  
        d - done, skip remaining changes and files
        a - record all changes to all remaining files
        q - quit, recording no changes
  
        ? - display help
  
      This command is not available when committing a merge.
  
  (use 'hg help -e record' to show help for the record extension)
  
  options ([+] can be repeated):
  
   -A --addremove           mark new/missing files as added/removed before
                            committing
      --close-branch        mark a branch head as closed
      --amend               amend the parent of the working directory
   -s --secret              use the secret phase for committing
   -e --edit                invoke editor on commit messages
   -I --include PATTERN [+] include names matching the given patterns
   -X --exclude PATTERN [+] exclude names matching the given patterns
   -m --message TEXT        use text as commit message
   -l --logfile FILE        read commit message from file
   -d --date DATE           record the specified date as commit date
   -u --user USER           record the specified user as committer
   -S --subrepos            recurse into subrepositories
   -w --ignore-all-space    ignore white space when comparing lines
   -b --ignore-space-change ignore changes in the amount of white space
   -B --ignore-blank-lines  ignore changes whose lines are all blank
  
  (some details hidden, use --verbose to show complete help)

Select no files

  $ touch empty-rw
  $ hg add empty-rw

  $ hg record empty-rw<<EOF
  > n
  > EOF
  diff --git a/empty-rw b/empty-rw
  new file mode 100644
  examine changes to 'empty-rw'? [Ynesfdaq?] n
  
  no changes to record

  $ hg tip -p
  changeset:   -1:000000000000
  tag:         tip
  user:        
  date:        Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000