--- a/mercurial/revlog.py
+++ b/mercurial/revlog.py
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ from mercurial import mdiff
def hex(node): return binascii.hexlify(node)
def bin(node): return binascii.unhexlify(node)
+def short(node): return hex(node[:4])
def compress(text):
return zlib.compress(text)