:param replace: char to find and replace multiple instances

    Examples::

    >>> recursive_replace("Mighty---Mighty-Bo--sstones",'-')

    'Mighty-Mighty-Bo-sstones'

    """

    if str_.find(replace * 2) == -1:

        return str_

    else:

        str_ = str_.replace(replace * 2, replace)

        return recursive_replace(str_, replace)

def repo_name_slug(value):

    """Return slug of name of repository

    This function is called on each creation/modification

    of repository to prevent bad names in repo

    """

    slug = remove_formatting(value)

    slug = strip_tags(slug)

    for c in """=[]\;'"<>,/~!@#$%^&*()+{}|: """:

        slug = slug.replace(c, '-')

    slug = recursive_replace(slug, '-')

    slug = collapse(slug, '-')

    return slug

def get_repo_slug(request):

    return request.environ['pylons.routes_dict'].get('repo_name')

def action_logger(user, action, repo, ipaddr='', sa=None, commit=False):

    """

    Action logger for various actions made by users

    :param user: user that made this action, can be a unique username string or

        object containing user_id attribute

    :param action: action to log, should be on of predefined unique actions for

        easy translations

    :param repo: string name of repository or object containing repo_id,

        that action was made on

    :param ipaddr: optional ip address from what the action was made

    :param sa: optional sqlalchemy session

    """

    if not sa:

        sa = meta.Session

    try:

        if hasattr(user, 'user_id'):

            user_obj = user

        elif isinstance(user, basestring):

            user_obj = User.get_by_username(user)

        else:

            raise Exception('You have to provide user object or username')

        if hasattr(repo, 'repo_id'):

            repo_obj = Repository.get(repo.repo_id)

            repo_name = repo_obj.repo_name

        elif  isinstance(repo, basestring):

            repo_name = repo.lstrip('/')

            repo_obj = Repository.get_by_repo_name(repo_name)

        else:

            raise Exception('You have to provide repository to action logger')

        user_log = UserLog()

        user_log.user_id = user_obj.user_id

        user_log.action = action

        user_log.repository_id = repo_obj.repo_id

        user_log.repository_name = repo_name

        user_log.action_date = datetime.datetime.now()

        user_log.user_ip = ipaddr

        sa.add(user_log)

        log.info('Adding user %s, action %s on %s', user_obj, action, repo)

        if commit:

            sa.commit()

    except:

        log.error(traceback.format_exc())

        raise

def get_repos(path, recursive=False):

    """

    Scans given path for repos and return (name,(type,path)) tuple

    :param path: path to scann for repositories

    :param recursive: recursive search and return names with subdirs in front

    """

    def _get_repos(p):

        if not os.access(p, os.W_OK):

            return

        for dirpath in os.listdir(p):

            if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(p, dirpath)):

                continue

            cur_path = os.path.join(p, dirpath)

            try:

                scm_info = get_scm(cur_path)

            except VCSError:

                if not recursive:

                    continue

                #check if this dir containts other repos for recursive scan

                rec_path = os.path.join(p, dirpath)

                if os.path.isdir(rec_path):

                    for inner_scm in _get_repos(rec_path):

                        yield inner_scm

    return _get_repos(path)

def is_valid_repo(repo_name, base_path):

    """

    Returns True if given path is a valid repository False otherwise

    :param repo_name:

    :param base_path:

    :return True: if given path is a valid repository

    """

    full_path = os.path.join(base_path, repo_name)

    try:

        get_scm(full_path)

        return True

    except VCSError:

        return False

def is_valid_repos_group(repos_group_name, base_path):

    """

    Returns True if given path is a repos group False otherwise

    :param repo_name:

    :param base_path:

    """

    full_path = os.path.join(base_path, repos_group_name)

    # check if it's not a repo

    if is_valid_repo(repos_group_name, base_path):

        return False

    # check if it's a valid path

    if os.path.isdir(full_path):

        return True

    return False

def ask_ok(prompt, retries=4, complaint='Yes or no, please!'):

    while True:

        ok = raw_input(prompt)

        if ok in ('y', 'ye', 'yes'):

            return True

        if ok in ('n', 'no', 'nop', 'nope'):

            return False

        retries = retries - 1

        if retries < 0:

            raise IOError

        print complaint

#propagated from mercurial documentation

ui_sections = ['alias', 'auth',

                'decode/encode', 'defaults',

                'diff', 'email',

                'extensions', 'format',

                'merge-patterns', 'merge-tools',

                'hooks', 'http_proxy',

                'smtp', 'patch',

                'paths', 'profiling',

                'server', 'trusted',

                'ui', 'web', ]

def make_ui(read_from='file', path=None, checkpaths=True):

    """A function that will read python rc files or database

    and make an mercurial ui object from read options

    :param path: path to mercurial config file

    :param checkpaths: check the path

    :param read_from: read from 'file' or 'db'

    """

    baseui = ui.ui()

    #clean the baseui object

    baseui._ocfg = config.config()

    baseui._ucfg = config.config()

    baseui._tcfg = config.config()

    if read_from == 'file':

        if not os.path.isfile(path):

            log.warning('Unable to read config file %s' % path)

            return False

        log.debug('reading hgrc from %s', path)

        cfg = config.config()

        cfg.read(path)

        for section in ui_sections: