Don't decode unicode strings.
This does not work with python2.3 and is probably not useful anyway with 2.4.
#!/bin/sh
hg init rep; cd rep
touch empty-file
python -c 'for x in range(10000): print x' > large-file
hg addremove
hg commit -m A
rm large-file empty-file
python -c 'for x in range(10,10000): print x' > another-file
hg addremove -s50
hg commit -m B
echo % comparing two empty files caused ZeroDivisionError in the past
hg update -C 0
rm empty-file
touch another-empty-file
hg addremove -s50
cd ..
hg init rep2; cd rep2
python -c 'for x in range(10000): print x' > large-file
python -c 'for x in range(50): print x' > tiny-file
hg addremove
hg commit -m A
python -c 'for x in range(70): print x' > small-file
rm tiny-file
rm large-file
hg addremove -s50
hg commit -m B
echo % should all fail
hg addremove -s foo
hg addremove -s -1
hg addremove -s 1e6
true