Kolab/kolab
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Bundle File Formats
"""""""""""""""""""
Mercurial supports generating standalone "bundle" files that hold repository
data. These "bundles" are typically saved locally and used later or exchanged
between different repositories, possibly on different machines. Example
commands using bundles are :hg:`bundle` and :hg:`unbundle`.
Generation of bundle files is controlled by a "bundle specification"
("bundlespec") string. This string tells the bundle generation process how
to create the bundle.
A "bundlespec" string is composed of the following elements:
type
A string denoting the bundle format to use.
compression
Denotes the compression engine to use compressing the raw bundle data.
parameters
Arbitrary key-value parameters to further control bundle generation.
A "bundlespec" string has the following formats:
<type>
The literal bundle format string is used.
<compression>-<type>
The compression engine and format are delimited by a hyphen (``-``).
Optional parameters follow the ``<type>``. Parameters are URI escaped
``key=value`` pairs. Each pair is delimited by a semicolon (``;``). The
first parameter begins after a ``;`` immediately following the ``<type>``
value.
Available Types
===============
The following bundle <type> strings are available:
v1
Produces a legacy "changegroup" version 1 bundle.
This format is compatible with nearly all Mercurial clients because it is
the oldest. However, it has some limitations, which is why it is no longer
the default for new repositories.
``v1`` bundles can be used with modern repositories using the "generaldelta"
storage format. However, it may take longer to produce the bundle and the
resulting bundle may be significantly larger than a ``v2`` bundle.
``v1`` bundles can only use the ``gzip``, ``bzip2``, and ``none`` compression
formats.
v2
Produces a version 2 bundle.
Version 2 bundles are an extensible format that can store additional
repository data (such as bookmarks and phases information) and they can
store data more efficiently, resulting in smaller bundles.
Version 2 bundles can also use modern compression engines, such as
``zstd``, making them faster to compress and often smaller.
Available Compression Engines
=============================
The following bundle <compression> engines can be used:
``bzip2``
An algorithm that produces smaller bundles than ``gzip``.
All Mercurial clients should support this format.
This engine will likely produce smaller bundles than ``gzip`` but
will be significantly slower, both during compression and
decompression.
If available, the ``zstd`` engine can yield similar or better
compression at much higher speeds.
``gzip``
zlib compression using the DEFLATE algorithm.
All Mercurial clients should support this format. The compression
algorithm strikes a reasonable balance between compression ratio
and size.
``none``
No compression is performed.
Use this compression engine to explicitly disable compression.
``zstd``
A modern compression algorithm that is fast and highly flexible.
Only supported by Mercurial 4.1 and newer clients.
With the default settings, zstd compression is both faster and yields
better compression than ``gzip``. It also frequently yields better
compression than ``bzip2`` while operating at much higher speeds.
If this engine is available and backwards compatibility is not a
concern, it is likely the best available engine.
Examples
========
``v2``
Produce a ``v2`` bundle using default options, including compression.
``none-v1``
Produce a ``v1`` bundle with no compression.
``zstd-v2``
Produce a ``v2`` bundle with zstandard compression using default
settings.
``zstd-v1``
This errors because ``zstd`` is not supported for ``v1`` types.