How to limit to N newest entries with Hg Log when specifying a Revset?

Question

This question is not a duplicate of hg log - How to get the last 5 log entries? - it is easy to apply a limit. The problem is that the log output, when limited, does not appear to always be ordered descending by log date - the behavior changes with the addition of a revset.

For example, the simple log work "as expected" and it is displays the newest five log entries.

hg log -l5

However, when using a revset the result is the oldest nodes first (as observed without -l); hence the following shows the oldest five entries which is not desired.

hg log -r "user('Me')" -l5

How can can hg log, with a revset, be instructed to order by the log date descending ("as expected") so that the limit has a predictable¹ and meaningful effect?

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$ hg --version
Mercurial Distributed SCM (version 3.6.1)

¹ I don't consider throwing random reverse calls in a revset predictable, but if that is the "best" way..

Answer 1

There are a couple of options you have.

First, you can use reverse() in conjunction with your existing revset, e.g.:

hg log -r 'reverse(user("me"))' -l 5

As a shorthand, you can also use -f or --follow, which – when used in conjunction with -r – will wrap the revision in reverse(...). Example:

hg log -f -r 'user("me")' -l 5

Or you can encode the limit in the changeset, e.g.:

hg log -r 'last(user("me"), 5)'

Note that revset aliases can be useful to avoid having to type out revsets over and over. So, you can put something like this in your .hgrc:

[revsetalias]
lastby($1) = last(user($1), 5)

And then do:

hg log -r 'lastby("me")`