Mercurial manual merge does not launch meld

Question

Having read Completely manual Mercurial merge, I have such a .hgrc:

[ui]
merge = meld

[merge-tools]
meld.priority = 1
meld.premerge = False
meld.args = $local $other $base 

[merge-patterns]
** = meld

However, hg merge -r REV just works and I don't get what i'm missing...

I'd like to do a manual merge to drop some of the changes the other branch introduces. The other branch has a changeset affecting several files and I don't want to modify them all.

Answer 1

I've got two guesses. Either your configuration settings aren't getting picked up or you don't have enough conflict for Mercurial to consider your merge in need of resolution.

You can check for the former with hg showconfig -- make sure you see your meld settings.

If they are showing up then maybe there isn't enough conflict between the two changesets you're merging. Even with premerge set to false there still needs to be something that requires merging. Are there actual changes in the same file in both changesets? Perhaps try hg merge --tool internal:fail and then check the hg resolve --list to see what's there.

Answer 2

I' m following your instruction to use MELD when doing a diff. I get this:

    hg meld file.F
usage:
    meld                       Start with no windows open
    meld <dir>                 Start with VC browser in 'dir'
    meld <file>                Start with VC diff of 'file'
    meld <file> <file> [file]  Start with 2 or 3 way file comparison
    meld <dir>  <dir>  [dir]   Start with 2 or 3 way directory comparison

meld: error: no such option: -a

where does this -a option come from?