~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

Configuring Bazaar

==================

Telling Bazaar about yourself

-----------------------------

One function of a version control system is to keep track of who changed

what.  In a decentralized system, that requires an identifier for each

author that is globally unique.  Most people already have one of these: an

email address. Bazaar is smart enough to automatically generate an email

address by looking up your username and hostname. If you don't like the

guess that Bazaar makes, then use the ``whoami`` command to set the

identifier you want::

    % bzr whoami "Your Name <email@example.com>"

If ``whoami`` is used without an argument, the current value is displayed.

Configuration files

-------------------

Configuration files are located in ``$HOME/.bazaar`` on Linux/Unix and

``C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Bazaar\2.0`` on

Windows. There are three primary configuration files in this location:

* ``bazaar.conf`` describes default configuration options,

* ``locations.conf`` describes configuration information for

  specific branch locations,

* ``authentication.conf`` describes credential information for

  remote servers.

Each branch can also contain a configuration file that sets values specific

to that branch. This file is found at ``.bzr/branch/branch.conf`` within the

branch. This file is visible to **all users of a branch**. If you wish to

override one of the values for a branch with a setting that is specific to you,

then you can do so in ``locations.conf``.

Here is sample content of ``bazaar.conf`` after setting an email address using

the ``whoami`` command::

  [DEFAULT]

  email = Your Name <email@example.com>

For further details on the syntax and configuration settings supported, see

`Configuration Settings <../user-reference/bzr_man.html#configuration-settings>`_

in the Bazaar User Reference.

Rule-based preferences

----------------------

Some commands and plugins provide custom processing on files matching

certain patterns. Per-user rule-based preferences are defined in

``BZR_HOME/rules``.

For further information on how rules are searched and the detailed syntax of

the relevant files, see `Rules <../user-reference/bzr_man.html#rules>`_

in the Bazaar User Reference.