[Monotone-users] I'm sorry to keep bothering you

[jfl]

I'm sorry to keep bothering you but I am having problems and my world does not 
include any monotone experts, or even anyone who knows what monotone is or what 
a source code control system is, so here I am. Again.

I have made a database with a couple of branches. Here's one ...

+++

mkdir ~/mtn/ooncd ; cd ~/mtn/ooncd
mtn db init --db=ooncd
mtn --db=ooncd --branch=th.or.ooncd-th setup th
cd th
cp -r ../../ooncd-old/th/rst .
cp ../../ooncd-old/th/makefile .
mtn add -R rst makefile
mtn commit address@hidden --message="initial checkin of ooncd-th"
cd ..

mtn serve --bind="127.0.0.1:8990" --db="~/mtn/ooncd/ooncd" 
--key="address@hidden" &

mtn address@hidden clone mtn://127.0.0.1:8990?ooncd-th
        mtn: using default database ':default.mtn'
        mtn: connecting to 'mtn://127.0.0.1:8990'
        mtn:   include pattern  'ooncd\-th'
        mtn:   exclude pattern  ''
        mtn: finding items to synchronize:
        mtn: successful exchange with 'mtn://127.0.0.1:8990'
        mtn:  bytes in | bytes out | certs in
        mtn:       351 |       688 |      0/0
        mtn: misuse: branch 'ooncd-th' is empty

mtn pull mtn://127.0.0.1:8990/ooncd?th.or.ooncd-th
        mtn: misuse: no database specified

mtn pull mtn://127.0.0.1:8990/ooncd
        mtn: misuse: no database specified

+++

I don't understand why the branch is empty, or why I even need a key to run the 
clone command ...

cat /etc/monotone/read-permissions 
pattern "*"
allow "*"

I thought that meant that any one could clone the repository.

So, I tried pull ... but monotone doesn't know what I'm talking about.

I tried the old-fashioned syntax first, but monotone complained that I was 
old-fashioned.

Why does 'k' take just one dash, no space, and the keyname in some commands and 
the 'normal' two dashes, '=', and the keyname in quotes in others?

I don't want people to have to use keywords to clone or pull the repository. 
It's arcane enough without that. I imagine that initially clone and pull are 
equivalent, but that after the first clone/pull, pull just pulls the difference 
between the repositories. And that pull is not yet a commit. And that push is 
the same as pull but in the other direction?