View differences between two changesets on one file

Question

I have a file tracked in Mercurial. I can see its history with hg log. How can I see the diffs between its most recent version, and the last checked-in changeset?

Solution 1

hg diff -r <first_revision_number>:<other_revision_number> filename

that will do it

e.g hg diff -r 0:1 default.aspx

hope it helps

Solution 2

If you know the revision numbers, then what PaulStack said is correct.

If you explicitly want to know the difference between the current tip of the branch, and it's previous, you can use shortcuts. Of course, if the file hasn't changed, the diff won't show anything useful.

hg diff -r -1:. filename

The -1 says previous changeset on this branch. the '.' means the current changeset. You can use -2, -3 etc, but once you hit a merge point, it gets a little more interesting. (reference: http://hgtip.com/tips/beginner/2009-10-05-shortcuts-for-specifying-revisions/)

If what you want is the outstanding changes in your workspace, then it's merely hg diff filename.

A few useful places for HG newbies is http://hgtip.com.

The HG definitive guide at http://hgbook.red-bean.com/.

A stackoverflow like site that's more HG specific is the Kiln support site. http://kiln.stackexchange.com. Kiln is built on top of HG, and uses a modified TortoiseHG client, so most of the questions and answers there are informative. They will also answer questions even if you aren't a user.

Comments

[podperson]

This is (I think) a lot more likely to be helpful than the marked answer.

[CodeLurker]

Interesting: Not finding this in hg diff -h --verbose. Really should be there.

[CodeLurker]

Interesting: Not finding this in hg diff -h --verbose. Really should be there.

[Ecnassianer]

The -1 revision shortcut is being deprecated. Is there another method to do this?

[Mikezx6r]

Sorry, no idea. I've had to move to Git, so haven't use HG in years.