Why is this mercurial patch not moving the file? - patch

Question

I've used TortoiseHG to export a patch that moves a file to another place. This is the content of the patch :
# HG changeset patch
# User Arthur Attout <arthur.attout#outlook.com>
# Date 1551095974 -3600
# Mon Feb 25 12:59:34 2019 +0100
# Branch CBLS
# Node ID f73e7c88dbcf6de3091e1edc9360336d1c699038
# Parent 863386a2a66de9cdd6d8885912988cb4b862eef0
Unit tests + migrate unit tests int -> long
diff -r 863386a2a66d -r f73e7c88dbcf oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/invariants/InvariantTests.scala
--- a/oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/invariants/InvariantTests.scala Fri Feb 22 14:30:14 2019 +0100
+++ /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
## -1,948 +0,0 ##
-package oscar.cbls.test.invariants
-
- Thousands of lines ...
-
diff -r 863386a2a66d -r f73e7c88dbcf oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/unit/InvariantTests.scala
--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/unit/InvariantTests.scala Mon Feb 25 12:59:34 2019 +0100
## -0,0 +1,877 ##
+package oscar.cbls.test.unit
+ Same thousands of lines ...
+
This is the only thing the patches do. It moves the file InvariantTests from invariants to unit.
When I import the patch in tortoiseHG it gives the following error
Hunk #1 FAILED at 0
1 out of 1 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/invariants/InvariantTests.scala.rej
patching file oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/unit/InvariantTests.scala
adding oscar-cbls/src/test/scala/oscar/cbls/test/unit/InvariantTests.scala
abandon : patch failed to apply
[command returned code 255 Mon Apr 15 19:55:02 2019]
After that, this is the content of my working directory
The file is not moved.
What does this 255 error mean ? Why isn't the patch simply applying an moving the file properly ?

Answer 1

Mercurial doc clearly states:
Mercurial's default format for showing changes between two versions of
a file is compatible with the unified format of GNU diff, which can be
used by GNU patch and many other standard tools.
While this standard format is often enough, it does not encode the following information:
executable status and other permission bits
copy or rename information
changes in binary files creation or deletion of empty files
In order to have this data in patch, you have to create git-compatible patch with -git (AFAICR) option, also available in THG GUI