convert: clear the dirstate before a conversion, invalidate it afterwards Clearing it before the conversion protects us from whatever data were there (file copies in particular). Invalidating it after the conversion avoids writing a possibly inconsistent dirstate to disk.

#!/bin/sh

hg init
touch a
hg add a
hg ci -m "a" -d "1000000 0"

echo 123 > b
hg add b
hg diff --nodates

hg diff --nodates -r tip

echo foo > a
hg diff --nodates

hg diff -r ""
hg diff -r tip -r ""

true