Download subdirectory from remote repository

[Matt Mackall]

On Tue, 2012-12-04 at 17:42 +0100, Pierre-Yves David wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 07:39:40PM +0300, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Bryan O'Sullivan <bos at serpentine.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 10:24 PM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>wrote:
> > >
> > >> Instead I just want to download subdirectory without any history, tagged
> > >> or not. Is there a way to do this in HG?
> > >>
> > >
> > > No. The "hg archive" command supports this, but the web interface doesn't.
> > >
> > 
> > Is there any chance to get it? It is useful to fetch dependencies for
> > scripting languages directly from the repository.
> 
> We would probably take a patches doing this.
> 
> What does other people feel about it ?

IIRC, the last time patches to grab archives of subdirectories were
proposed (~4 years ago?), it was rejected for failing to fit into our
URL schema cleanly.

Today, I'd probably insist that any such feature also come with a
request-rate limiting mechanism. "It is useful to fetch dependencies"
sounds too much like "We plan on abusing this with inefficient
automation".

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.