hg status vs. cvs status for file which needs update ?

[Mathieu Clabaut]

Hello everybody,

 I'm new to mercurial, and I must say I'm very impressed by my first
tries. Mercurial is very easy to use.

 I still have some questions about the way to use it.
  With cvs, I used "cvs status" (or scripts build upon cvs status) to
quickly know if I have files to be committed, new files, or files to
be updated. When using "hg status", I get the same information except
about the file which must/can be updated (which have a newer version
in th repository)....

  The only way to find if there are new version in the repository is
to see if "hg parents" contains the "tip" tag. Am I right ?

  Anyway, I still wonder why  "hg status" doesn't state about
pending/possible update ? May I dig in the code and try to propose a
patch (I'm totally python ignorant for now) ? Or is it considered out
of the scope of the status command ?

 Thank you for your insight...

-mathieu (which has the feeling he probably totally misses a crucial point :-) )