####################
Bazaar Release Notes
####################

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1

bzr 2.4b1
#########

:2.4b1: NOT RELEASED YET

External Compatibility Breaks
*****************************

.. These may require users to change the way they use Bazaar.

New Features
************

.. New commands, options, etc that users may wish to try out.

* The ``lp:`` directory service now supports Launchpad's QA staging.
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #667483)

* External merge tools can now be configured in bazaar.conf. See
  ``bzr help configuration`` for more information.  (Gordon Tyler, #489915)

* Configuration options can now use references to other options in the same
  file by enclosing them with curly brackets (``{other_opt}``). This makes it
  possible to use, for example,
  ``push_location=lp:~vila/bzr/config-{nickname}`` in ``branch.conf`` when
  using a loom. During the beta period, the default behaviour is to disable
  this feature. It can be activated by declaring ``bzr.config.expand = True``
  in ``bazaar.conf``. (Vincent Ladeuil)

Improvements
************

.. Improvements to existing commands, especially improved performance 
   or memory usage, or better results.

* A new hidden command ``bzr repair-workingtree``. This is a way to force
  the dirstate file to be rebuilt, rather than using a ``bzr checkout``
  workaround. (John Arbash Meinel)

* Added a ``Branch.heads_to_fetch`` RPC to the smart server protocol.
  This allows formats from plugins (such as looms) to efficiently tell the
  client which revisions need to be fetched.  (Andrew Bennetts)

* Branching, merging and pulling a branch now copies revisions named in
  tags, not just the tag metadata.  (Andrew Bennetts, #309682)
  
* ``bzr cat-revision`` no longer requires a working tree. (Jelmer Vernooij, #704405)

Bug Fixes
*********

.. Fixes for situations where bzr would previously crash or give incorrect
   or undesirable results.

* A MemoryError thrown on the server during a remote operation will now be
  usefully reported, and other unexpected errors will include the class name.
  (Martin [gz], #722416)

* ``bzr annotate -r-1 file`` will now properly annotate a deleted file.
  (Andrew King, #537442)

* ``bzr export`` to zip files will now set a mode on directories.
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #207253)

* ``bzr push --overwrite`` with an older revision specified will now correctly
  roll back the target branch. (Jelmer Vernooij, #386576)

* ``bzr lp-propose`` can now propose merges against packaging branches on
  Launchpad without requiring the target branch to be specified.
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #704647)

* ``bzr lp-propose`` no longer requires a reviewer to be specified. It will
  instead leave setting the reviewer up to Launchpad if it was not specified.
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #583772)

* ``bzr pull`` will now exit with exit code 1 if there were tag conflicts.
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #213185)

* ``bzr mv`` user errors no longer throw UnicodeEncodeError with non-ascii
  paths, however they may still print junk if not on a UTF-8 terminal.
  (Martin [gz], #707954)

* ``bzr reconfigure --unstacked`` now copies revisions (and their
  ancestors) named in tags into the unstacked repository, not just the
  ancestry of the branch's tip.  (Andrew Bennetts, #401646)

* ``bzr serve`` no longer crashes when a server_started hook is installed and
  IPv6 support is available on the system. (Jelmer Vernooij, #293697)

* ``bzr tags`` will no longer choke on branches with ghost revisions in
  their mainline and tags on revisions not in the branch ancestry. 
  (Jelmer Vernooij, #397556)

* ``bzr whoami`` will now display an error if both a new identity and
  ``--email`` were specified. (Jelmer Vernooij, #680449)

* ``launchpadlib`` doesn't provide the ``uris`` module in some old versions.
  (Vincent Ladeuil, #706835)

* Empty entries in the ``NO_PROXY`` variable are no longer treated as matching
  every host.
  (Martin Pool, #586341)

* Plugins incompatible with the current version of bzr no longer produce a
  warning on every command invocation.  Instead, a message is shown by
  ``bzr plugins`` and in crash reports.
  (#704195, Martin Pool)

* The "pretty" version of ``needs_read_lock`` and ``needs_write_lock`` now
  preserves the identity of default parameter values.
  (Andrew Bennetts, #718569)

* ``bzr dump-btree --raw`` no longer tracebacks on a B-Tree file
  containing no rows. (Eric Siegerman, #715508)

* Fix ``bzr lp-mirror`` to work on command line branch URLs and branches
  without an explicit public location. (Max Bowsher)

* On Python 2.6 and higher, use multiprocessing.cpu_count() to retrieve the
  number of available processors. (Jelmer Vernooij, #693140)

Documentation
*************

.. Improved or updated documentation.

API Changes
***********

.. Changes that may require updates in plugins or other code that uses
   bzrlib.

* Added ``Branch.heads_to_fetch`` method.  Implementions of the Branch API
  must now inherit or implement this method.  (Andrew Bennetts, #721328)
  
* Added ``bzrlib.mergetools`` module with helper functions for working with
  the list of external merge tools. (Gordon Tyler, #489915)

* All methods and arguments that were deprecated before 2.0
  have been removed. (Jelmer Vernooij)

* Branch formats should now be registered on the format registry
  (``bzrlib.branch.format_registry``) rather than using the class
  methods on ``BranchFormat``. (Jelmer Vernooij, #714729)

* ``BranchFormat.supports_leaving_lock()`` and
  ``RepositoryFormat.supports_leaving_lock`` flags have been added.
  (Jelmer Vernooij)

* ``Branch.fetch`` implementations must now accept an optional
  ``fetch_spec`` keyword argument. (Andrew Bennetts)

* ``Branch.import_last_revision_info`` is deprecated.  Use the
  ``import_last_revision_info_and_tags`` method instead.
  (Andrew Bennetts)

* ``bzrlib.revionspec.dwim_revspecs`` is deprecated.
  Use ``bzrlib.revisionspec.RevisionSpec_dwim.append_possible_revspec`` and
  ``bzrlib.revisionspec.RevisionSpec_dwim.append_possible_lazy_revspec``
  instead.  (Jelmer Vernooij, #721971)

* ``BzrDirFormat`` has a new attribute ``fixed_components`` that
  indicates whether the components of the bzrdir can be upgraded
  independent of the ``BzrDir``. (Jelmer Vernooij)

* Repository formats can now provide
  ``_get_extra_interrepo_test_combinations`` in the same module 
  to provide extra test combinations for ``bzrlib.tests.per_repository``.
  (Jelmer Vernooij)

* Repository formats should now be registered on the format registry
  (``bzrlib.repository.format_registry``) rather than using the class
  methods on ``RepositoryFormat``. (Jelmer Vernooij)

* Repository formats have a new method ``is_deprecated`` that
  implementations can override to return True to trigger a deprecation
  warning. (Jelmer Vernooij)

* The ``revision_id`` parameter of
  ``Repository.search_missing_revision_ids`` and
  ``InterRepository.search_missing_revision_ids`` is deprecated.  It is
  replaced by the ``revision_ids`` parameter.  (Andrew Bennetts)

* Working tree formats should now be registered on the format registry
  (``bzrlib.working_tree.format_registry``) rather than using the class
  methods on ``WorkingTreeFormat``. (Jelmer Vernooij, #714730)

Internals
*********

.. Major internal changes, unlikely to be visible to users or plugin 
   developers, but interesting for bzr developers.

* ``CatchingExceptionThread`` (formerly ThreadWithException) has been moved
  out of the ``bzrlib.tests`` hierarchy to make it clearer that it can be used
  outside of tests. This class makes it easier to track exceptions in threads
  by cacthing them so they can be re-raised in the controlling thread. It's
  available in the ``bzrlib.cethread`` module.  (Vincent Ladeuil)

* ``HookPoint.lazy_hook`` and ``Hooks.install_named_lazy_hook`` can install 
  hooks for which the callable is loaded lazily.  (Jelmer Vernooij)

Testing
*******

.. Fixes and changes that are only relevant to bzr's test framework and 
   suite.  This can include new facilities for writing tests, fixes to 
   spurious test failures and changes to the way things should be tested.

..
   vim: tw=74 ft=rst ff=unix