When hg is invoked without parameters, the short list help is displayed. When hg is executed without parameters ( or hg is executed with the 'help shortlist' command ) the short help list is displayed. If the 'help' command is passed on the commandline the full help list is displayed. In both the cases if the switch '-v' is passed, the help contains also the aliases of the short/full commands list and the global switches.

#!/bin/sh

hg init
echo 123 > a
hg add a
hg commit -m "first" -d "0 0" a
mkdir sub
echo 321 > sub/b
hg add sub/b
hg commit -m "second" -d "0 0" sub/b
cat sub/b
hg co 0
cat sub/b
ls sub

true