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.

Using a network proxy
---------------------

If your network requires that you use an HTTP proxy for outbound
connections, you must set the ``http_proxy`` variable.  If the proxy is
also required for https connections, you need to set ``https_proxy`` too.
If you need these and don't have them set, you may find that connections
to Launchpad or other external servers fail or time out.

On Unix you typically want to set these in ``/etc/environment`` or
``~/.bash_profile`` and on Windows in the user profile.

::

  http_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:3128/
  https_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:3128/

The ``no_proxy`` variable can be set to a comma-separated list of hosts
which shouldn't be reached by the proxy.  (See
<http://docs.python.org/library/urllib.html> for more details.)

Various ways to configure
-------------------------

As shown in the example above, there are various ways to
configure Bazaar, they all share some common properties though.
An option has:

- a name which is generally a valid python identifier,

- a value which is a string. In some cases, Bazaar will be able
  to recognize special values like 'True', 'False' to infer a
  boolean type, but basically, as a user, you will always specify
  a value as a string.

Options are grouped in various contexts so the option name
uniquely identifies it in this context. When needed, options can
be made persistent by recording them in a configuration file.


Configuration files
-------------------

Configuration files are located in ``$HOME/.bazaar`` on 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/index.html#configuration-settings>`_
in the Bazaar User Reference.


Looking at the active configuration
-----------------------------------

To look at all the currently defined options, you can use the following
command::

  bzr config

``bzr`` implements some rules to decide where to get the value of a
configuration option.

The current policy is to examine the existing configurations files in a
given order for matching definitions.

  * ``locations.conf`` is searched first for a section whose name matches the
    location considered (working tree, branch or remote branch),

  * the current ``branch.conf`` is searched next,

  * ``bazaar.conf`` is searched next,

  * finally, some options can have default values generally defined in the
    code itself and not displayed by ``bzr config`` (see `Configuration
    Settings <../user-reference/index.html#configuration-settings>`_).

This is better understood by using ```bzr config`` with no arguments, which
will display some output of the form::

  locations:
    post_commit_to = commits@example.com
    news_merge_files = NEWS
  branch:
    parent_location = bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/+branch/bzr/
    nickname = config-modify
    push_location = bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~vila/bzr/config-modify/
  bazaar:
    debug_flags = hpss,

Each configuration file is associated with a given scope whose name is
displayed before each set of defined options.

If you need to look at a specific option, you can use::

  bzr config <option>

This will display only the option value and is intended to be used in
scripts.

Modifying the active configuration
----------------------------------

To set an option to a given value use::

  bzr config opt=value

An option value can reference another option by enclosing it in curly
braces::

  bzr config opt={other_opt}/subdir

If ``other_opt`` is set to ``'root``, ``bzr config opt`` will display::

  root/subdir

Note that when ``--all`` is used, the references are left as-is to better
reflect the content of the config files and make it easier to organize them::

  bzr config --all .*opt

  bazaar:
    [DEFAULT]
    opt = {other_opt}/subdir
    other_opt = root





To remove an option use::

  bzr config --remove opt


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/index.html#rules>`_
in the Bazaar User Reference.


Escaping command lines
----------------------

When you give a program name or command line in configuration, you can quote
to include special characters or whitespace.  The same rules are used across
all platforms.

The rules are: strings surrounded by double-quotes are interpreted as single
"words" even if they contain whitespace, and backslash may be used to quote
quotation marks.  For example::

    BZR_EDITOR="C:\Program Files\My Editor\myeditor.exe"