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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T10:55:27+00:00

I tried doing a simple commit through my wrapper library for Mercurial, using the

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I tried doing a simple commit through my wrapper library for Mercurial, using the simple text of Unicode:æøåÆØÅ as my commit message. This is written to a text file and given to Mercurial with the appropriate parameter:

hg commit --logfile FILE

If I subsequently look at the repository with TortoiseHg, the characters are reproduced correctly. On the Console, they are mangled:

[C:\Temp] :hg log
changeset:   0:6a0911410128
tag:         tip
user:        Lasse V. Karlsen 
date:        Wed Dec 01 21:48:54 2010 +0100
summary:     Unicode:æøåÆØÅ

If I redirect the output of hg log to a file, and open it up, æøåÆØÅ is reproduced correctly.

So, my question is this:

  • Can I ask hg to write the log to a file directly, or do I have to redirect standard output?
  • Will this cause problems with python encoding for console, ie. some characters will make hg crash instead of just mangling the output?
  • Is there a known supported encoding for the commit messages that I should adhere to?

Or is it just this simple:

  • Mercurial doesn’t care, it takes the contents of the file I give it, whatever the content, and stores that as the commit message. When producing the log, it will just dump it back to the console falling prey to whatever limitations the Python console output library has in this regard?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The following may not solve the issue but can help debug it.

    Check out : https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/EncodingStrategy

    If I redirect the output of hg log to a file, and open it up, æøåÆØÅ is reproduced correctly.

    So at least mercurial is storing the commit information correctly. It is only the output that is messed up.

    Some work happening along these lines but not related to this

    [Edit: Missed the fact that you are on windows]

    See the last paragraph on how to deal with character set compatibility problems: https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/CharacterEncodingOnWindows

    It says:

    • set your console code page to match your system code page
    • override Mercurial’s encoding with an environment variable
      • Setting HGENCODING will override the detected system character set.
    • override Mercurial’s encoding with a command-line option
      • Using the global –encoding option will allow you to set your preferred encoding on each command.
    • use GUI-based tools to interact with Mercurial
      • This also eliminates the problem, by eliminating that pesky console entirely.
    • use Linux/UNIX and UTF-8
      • This makes Bill Gates cry.
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