This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Add two missing "file"s to the documentation of Porting/bisect.pl
[perl5.git] / pod / perlgit.pod
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2
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3=for comment
4Consistent formatting of this file is achieved with:
04c692a8 5 perl ./Porting/podtidy pod/perlgit.pod
0549aefb 6
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7=head1 NAME
8
04c692a8 9perlgit - Detailed information about git and the Perl repository
d7dd28b6 10
04c692a8 11=head1 DESCRIPTION
d7dd28b6 12
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13This document provides details on using git to develop Perl. If you are
14just interested in working on a quick patch, see L<perlhack> first.
15This document is intended for people who are regular contributors to
16Perl, including those with write access to the git repository.
184487f0 17
04c692a8 18=head1 CLONING THE REPOSITORY
f6c12373 19
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20All of Perl's source code is kept centrally in a Git repository at
21I<perl5.git.perl.org>.
f6c12373 22
04c692a8 23You can make a read-only clone of the repository by running:
f6c12373 24
04c692a8 25 % git clone git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl
f6c12373 26
04c692a8 27This uses the git protocol (port 9418).
f6c12373 28
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29If you cannot use the git protocol for firewall reasons, you can also
30clone via http, though this is much slower:
3482f01a 31
04c692a8 32 % git clone http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl
b47aa495 33
04c692a8 34=head1 WORKING WITH THE REPOSITORY
d7dd28b6 35
6acba58e 36Once you have changed into the repository directory, you can inspect
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37it. After a clone the repository will contain a single local branch,
38which will be the current branch as well, as indicated by the asterisk.
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39
40 % git branch
41 * blead
42
f755e97d 43Using the -a switch to C<branch> will also show the remote tracking
6acba58e 44branches in the repository:
39219fd3 45
d9847473 46 % git branch -a
09081495 47 * blead
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48 origin/HEAD
49 origin/blead
50 ...
51
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52The branches that begin with "origin" correspond to the "git remote"
53that you cloned from (which is named "origin"). Each branch on the
c9d1da35 54remote will be exactly tracked by these branches. You should NEVER do
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55work on these remote tracking branches. You only ever do work in a
56local branch. Local branches can be configured to automerge (on pull)
57from a designated remote tracking branch. This is the case with the
58default branch C<blead> which will be configured to merge from the
59remote tracking branch C<origin/blead>.
39219fd3 60
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61You can see recent commits:
62
c2cf2042 63 % git log
d7dd28b6 64
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65And pull new changes from the repository, and update your local
66repository (must be clean first)
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67
68 % git pull
09081495 69
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70Assuming we are on the branch C<blead> immediately after a pull, this
71command would be more or less equivalent to:
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72
73 % git fetch
74 % git merge origin/blead
75
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76In fact if you want to update your local repository without touching
77your working directory you do:
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78
79 % git fetch
80
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81And if you want to update your remote-tracking branches for all defined
82remotes simultaneously you can do
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83
84 % git remote update
85
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86Neither of these last two commands will update your working directory,
87however both will update the remote-tracking branches in your
88repository.
39219fd3 89
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90To make a local branch of a remote branch:
91
92 % git checkout -b maint-5.10 origin/maint-5.10
93
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94To switch back to blead:
95
96 % git checkout blead
c2cf2042 97
ba336be1 98=head2 Finding out your status
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99
100The most common git command you will use will probably be
101
102 % git status
103
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104This command will produce as output a description of the current state
105of the repository, including modified files and unignored untracked
106files, and in addition it will show things like what files have been
107staged for the next commit, and usually some useful information about
108how to change things. For instance the following:
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109
110 $ git status
111 # On branch blead
112 # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 1 commit.
113 #
114 # Changes to be committed:
115 # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
116 #
04c692a8 117 # modified: pod/perlgit.pod
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118 #
119 # Changed but not updated:
120 # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
121 #
04c692a8 122 # modified: pod/perlgit.pod
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123 #
124 # Untracked files:
125 # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
126 #
127 # deliberate.untracked
128
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129This shows that there were changes to this document staged for commit,
130and that there were further changes in the working directory not yet
131staged. It also shows that there was an untracked file in the working
132directory, and as you can see shows how to change all of this. It also
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133shows that there is one commit on the working branch C<blead> which has
134not been pushed to the C<origin> remote yet. B<NOTE>: that this output
135is also what you see as a template if you do not provide a message to
136C<git commit>.
7f6effc7 137
04c692a8 138=head2 Patch workflow
7f6effc7 139
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140First, please read L<perlhack> for details on hacking the Perl core.
141That document covers many details on how to create a good patch.
7f6effc7 142
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143If you already have a Perl repository, you should ensure that you're on
144the I<blead> branch, and your repository is up to date:
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145
146 % git checkout blead
147 % git pull
148
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149It's preferable to patch against the latest blead version, since this
150is where new development occurs for all changes other than critical bug
04c692a8 151fixes. Critical bug fix patches should be made against the relevant
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152maint branches, or should be submitted with a note indicating all the
153branches where the fix should be applied.
a44f43ac 154
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155Now that we have everything up to date, we need to create a temporary
156new branch for these changes and switch into it:
b1fccde5 157
a9b05323 158 % git checkout -b orange
23f8d33e 159
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160which is the short form of
161
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162 % git branch orange
163 % git checkout orange
164
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165Creating a topic branch makes it easier for the maintainers to rebase
166or merge back into the master blead for a more linear history. If you
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167don't work on a topic branch the maintainer has to manually cherry pick
168your changes onto blead before they can be applied.
0c24b290 169
77db6475 170That'll get you scolded on perl5-porters, so don't do that. Be Awesome.
0c24b290 171
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172Then make your changes. For example, if Leon Brocard changes his name
173to Orange Brocard, we should change his name in the AUTHORS file:
174
175 % perl -pi -e 's{Leon Brocard}{Orange Brocard}' AUTHORS
176
177You can see what files are changed:
178
179 % git status
f755e97d 180 # On branch orange
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181 # Changes to be committed:
182 # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
183 #
2699d634 184 # modified: AUTHORS
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185 #
186
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187And you can see the changes:
188
189 % git diff
190 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
191 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
192 --- a/AUTHORS
193 +++ b/AUTHORS
7df2e4bc 194 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
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195 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
196 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
197 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
198 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
199 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
200 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
201 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
202 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
203
04c692a8 204Now commit your change locally:
77471e41 205
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206 % git commit -a -m 'Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard'
207 Created commit 6196c1d: Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
208 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
77471e41 209
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210The C<-a> option is used to include all files that git tracks that you
211have changed. If at this time, you only want to commit some of the
212files you have worked on, you can omit the C<-a> and use the command
213C<S<git add I<FILE ...>>> before doing the commit. C<S<git add
214--interactive>> allows you to even just commit portions of files
215instead of all the changes in them.
77471e41 216
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217The C<-m> option is used to specify the commit message. If you omit it,
218git will open a text editor for you to compose the message
219interactively. This is useful when the changes are more complex than
220the sample given here, and, depending on the editor, to know that the
221first line of the commit message doesn't exceed the 50 character legal
222maximum.
77471e41 223
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224Once you've finished writing your commit message and exited your
225editor, git will write your change to disk and tell you something like
226this:
77471e41 227
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228 Created commit daf8e63: explain git status and stuff about remotes
229 1 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
c2cf2042 230
04c692a8 231If you re-run C<git status>, you should see something like this:
c2cf2042 232
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233 % git status
234 # On branch blead
235 # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 2 commits.
236 #
237 # Untracked files:
238 # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
239 #
240 # deliberate.untracked
241 nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
2be70973 242
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243When in doubt, before you do anything else, check your status and read
244it carefully, many questions are answered directly by the git status
245output.
2be70973 246
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247You can examine your last commit with:
248
249 % git show HEAD
250
251and if you are not happy with either the description or the patch
c26da522 252itself you can fix it up by editing the files once more and then issue:
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253
254 % git commit -a --amend
255
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256Now you should create a patch file for all your local changes:
257
f15b1f22 258 % git format-patch -M origin..
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259 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
260
e001c712 261You should now send an email to
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262L<perlbug@perl.org|mailto:perlbug@perl.org> with a description of your
263changes, and include this patch file as an attachment. In addition to
77db6475 264being tracked by RT, mail to perlbug will automatically be forwarded to
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265perl5-porters (with manual moderation, so please be patient). You
266should only send patches to
267L<perl5-porters@perl.org|mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org> directly if the
268patch is not ready to be applied, but intended for discussion.
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269
270See the next section for how to configure and use git to send these
271emails for you.
c2cf2042 272
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273If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
274
275 % git checkout blead
276 % git branch -d orange
277 error: The branch 'orange' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
278 If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D orange'.
279 % git branch -D orange
280 Deleted branch orange.
7df2e4bc 281
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282=head2 Committing your changes
283
6a6d7b97 284Assuming that you'd like to commit all the changes you've made as a
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285single atomic unit, run this command:
286
287 % git commit -a
288
289(That C<-a> tells git to add every file you've changed to this commit.
290New files aren't automatically added to your commit when you use
291C<commit -a> If you want to add files or to commit some, but not all of
292your changes, have a look at the documentation for C<git add>.)
293
294Git will start up your favorite text editor, so that you can craft a
295commit message for your change. See L<perlhack/Commit message> for more
296information about what makes a good commit message.
297
298Once you've finished writing your commit message and exited your
299editor, git will write your change to disk and tell you something like
300this:
301
302 Created commit daf8e63: explain git status and stuff about remotes
303 1 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
304
305If you re-run C<git status>, you should see something like this:
306
307 % git status
308 # On branch blead
309 # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 2 commits.
310 #
311 # Untracked files:
312 # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
313 #
314 # deliberate.untracked
315 nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
316
317When in doubt, before you do anything else, check your status and read
318it carefully, many questions are answered directly by the git status
319output.
320
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321=head2 Using git to send patch emails
322
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323Please read L<perlhack> first in order to figure out where your patches
324should be sent.
325
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326In your ~/git/perl repository, set the destination email to perl's bug
327tracker:
328
329 $ git config sendemail.to perlbug@perl.org
330
04c692a8 331Or maybe perl5-porters:
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332
333 $ git config sendemail.to perl5-porters@perl.org
334
335Then you can use git directly to send your patch emails:
336
337 $ git send-email 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
338
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339You may need to set some configuration variables for your particular
340email service provider. For example, to set your global git config to
341send email via a gmail account:
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342
343 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpserver smtp.gmail.com
344 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpssl 1
345 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpuser YOURUSERNAME@gmail.com
346
333f8875 347With this configuration, you will be prompted for your gmail password
04c692a8 348when you run 'git send-email'. You can also configure
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349C<sendemail.smtppass> with your password if you don't care about having
350your password in the .gitconfig file.
2d5f1d01 351
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352=head2 A note on derived files
353
354Be aware that many files in the distribution are derivative--avoid
0549aefb 355patching them, because git won't see the changes to them, and the build
04c692a8 356process will overwrite them. Patch the originals instead. Most
0549aefb 357utilities (like perldoc) are in this category, i.e. patch
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358F<utils/perldoc.PL> rather than F<utils/perldoc>. Similarly, don't
359create patches for files under $src_root/ext from their copies found in
04c692a8 360$install_root/lib. If you are unsure about the proper location of a
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361file that may have gotten copied while building the source
362distribution, consult the C<MANIFEST>.
a44f43ac 363
04c692a8 364=head2 Cleaning a working directory
b0d36535 365
6acba58e 366The command C<git clean> can with varying arguments be used as a
dc3c3040 367replacement for C<make clean>.
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368
369To reset your working directory to a pristine condition you can do:
370
e0b2b458 371 % git clean -dxf
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372
373However, be aware this will delete ALL untracked content. You can use
374
e0b2b458 375 % git clean -Xf
b0d36535 376
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377to remove all ignored untracked files, such as build and test
378byproduct, but leave any manually created files alone.
b0d36535 379
0549aefb 380If you only want to cancel some uncommitted edits, you can use C<git
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381checkout> and give it a list of files to be reverted, or C<git checkout
382-f> to revert them all.
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383
384If you want to cancel one or several commits, you can use C<git reset>.
385
04c692a8 386=head2 Bisecting
d82a90c1 387
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388C<git> provides a built-in way to determine, with a binary search in
389the history, which commit should be blamed for introducing a given bug.
d82a90c1 390
6acba58e 391Suppose that we have a script F<~/testcase.pl> that exits with C<0>
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392when some behaviour is correct, and with C<1> when it's faulty. You
393need an helper script that automates building C<perl> and running the
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394testcase. For an example script, see F<Porting/bisect-example.sh>, which
395you should copy B<outside> of the repository as the bisect process will
396reset the state to a clean checkout as it runs. The instructions below assume
397that you copied it as F<~/run> and then edited as appropriate.
d82a90c1 398
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399This script may return C<125> to indicate that the corresponding commit
400should be skipped. Otherwise, it returns the status of
401F<~/testcase.pl>.
d82a90c1 402
bdaf0bc6 403You first enter in bisect mode with:
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404
405 % git bisect start
406
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407For example, if the bug is present on C<HEAD> but wasn't in 5.10.0,
408C<git> will learn about this when you enter:
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409
410 % git bisect bad
411 % git bisect good perl-5.10.0
412 Bisecting: 853 revisions left to test after this
413
6acba58e 414This results in checking out the median commit between C<HEAD> and
bdaf0bc6 415C<perl-5.10.0>. You can then run the bisecting process with:
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416
417 % git bisect run ~/run
418
419When the first bad commit is isolated, C<git bisect> will tell you so:
420
421 ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5 is first bad commit
422 commit ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5
423 Author: Dave Mitchell <davem@fdisolutions.com>
424 Date: Sat Feb 9 14:56:23 2008 +0000
425
9469eb4a 426 [perl #49472] Attributes + Unknown Error
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427 ...
428
429 bisect run success
430
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431You can peek into the bisecting process with C<git bisect log> and
432C<git bisect visualize>. C<git bisect reset> will get you out of bisect
433mode.
d82a90c1 434
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435Please note that the first C<good> state must be an ancestor of the
436first C<bad> state. If you want to search for the commit that I<solved>
437some bug, you have to negate your test case (i.e. exit with C<1> if OK
438and C<0> if not) and still mark the lower bound as C<good> and the
439upper as C<bad>. The "first bad commit" has then to be understood as
440the "first commit where the bug is solved".
d82a90c1 441
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442C<git help bisect> has much more information on how you can tweak your
443binary searches.
feb5e972 444
04c692a8 445=head1 Topic branches and rewriting history
9d68b7ed 446
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447Individual committers should create topic branches under
448B<yourname>/B<some_descriptive_name>. Other committers should check
449with a topic branch's creator before making any change to it.
03050721 450
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451The simplest way to create a remote topic branch that works on all
452versions of git is to push the current head as a new branch on the
453remote, then check it out locally:
03050721 454
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455 $ branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
456 $ git push origin HEAD:$branch
457 $ git checkout -b $branch origin/$branch
03050721 458
04c692a8 459Users of git 1.7 or newer can do it in a more obvious manner:
03050721 460
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461 $ branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
462 $ git checkout -b $branch
463 $ git push origin -u $branch
03050721 464
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465If you are not the creator of B<yourname>/B<some_descriptive_name>, you
466might sometimes find that the original author has edited the branch's
467history. There are lots of good reasons for this. Sometimes, an author
468might simply be rebasing the branch onto a newer source point.
469Sometimes, an author might have found an error in an early commit which
470they wanted to fix before merging the branch to blead.
c26da522 471
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472Currently the master repository is configured to forbid
473non-fast-forward merges. This means that the branches within can not be
474rebased and pushed as a single step.
c26da522 475
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476The only way you will ever be allowed to rebase or modify the history
477of a pushed branch is to delete it and push it as a new branch under
478the same name. Please think carefully about doing this. It may be
479better to sequentially rename your branches so that it is easier for
480others working with you to cherry-pick their local changes onto the new
481version. (XXX: needs explanation).
c26da522 482
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483If you want to rebase a personal topic branch, you will have to delete
484your existing topic branch and push as a new version of it. You can do
485this via the following formula (see the explanation about C<refspec>'s
486in the git push documentation for details) after you have rebased your
487branch:
c26da522 488
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489 # first rebase
490 $ git checkout $user/$topic
491 $ git fetch
492 $ git rebase origin/blead
c26da522 493
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494 # then "delete-and-push"
495 $ git push origin :$user/$topic
496 $ git push origin $user/$topic
c26da522 497
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498B<NOTE:> it is forbidden at the repository level to delete any of the
499"primary" branches. That is any branch matching
500C<m!^(blead|maint|perl)!>. Any attempt to do so will result in git
501producing an error like this:
c26da522 502
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503 $ git push origin :blead
504 *** It is forbidden to delete blead/maint branches in this repository
505 error: hooks/update exited with error code 1
506 error: hook declined to update refs/heads/blead
507 To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl
508 ! [remote rejected] blead (hook declined)
509 error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl'
c26da522 510
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511As a matter of policy we do B<not> edit the history of the blead and
512maint-* branches. If a typo (or worse) sneaks into a commit to blead or
513maint-*, we'll fix it in another commit. The only types of updates
514allowed on these branches are "fast-forward's", where all history is
515preserved.
2bab0636 516
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517Annotated tags in the canonical perl.git repository will never be
518deleted or modified. Think long and hard about whether you want to push
519a local tag to perl.git before doing so. (Pushing unannotated tags is
520not allowed.)
2bab0636 521
feb5e972 522=head2 Grafts
c26da522 523
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524The perl history contains one mistake which was not caught in the
525conversion: a merge was recorded in the history between blead and
526maint-5.10 where no merge actually occurred. Due to the nature of git,
527this is now impossible to fix in the public repository. You can remove
528this mis-merge locally by adding the following line to your
529C<.git/info/grafts> file:
c26da522 530
04c692a8 531 296f12bbbbaa06de9be9d09d3dcf8f4528898a49 434946e0cb7a32589ed92d18008aaa1d88515930
c26da522 532
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533It is particularly important to have this graft line if any bisecting
534is done in the area of the "merge" in question.
ce2a8773 535
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536=head1 WRITE ACCESS TO THE GIT REPOSITORY
537
538Once you have write access, you will need to modify the URL for the
539origin remote to enable pushing. Edit F<.git/config> with the
540git-config(1) command:
541
542 % git config remote.origin.url ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
543
544You can also set up your user name and e-mail address. Most people do
545this once globally in their F<~/.gitconfig> by doing something like:
546
547 % git config --global user.name "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason"
548 % git config --global user.email avarab@gmail.com
549
550However if you'd like to override that just for perl then execute then
551execute something like the following in F<perl>:
552
553 % git config user.email avar@cpan.org
554
555It is also possible to keep C<origin> as a git remote, and add a new
556remote for ssh access:
557
558 % git remote add camel perl5.git.perl.org:/perl.git
559
560This allows you to update your local repository by pulling from
561C<origin>, which is faster and doesn't require you to authenticate, and
562to push your changes back with the C<camel> remote:
563
564 % git fetch camel
565 % git push camel
566
567The C<fetch> command just updates the C<camel> refs, as the objects
568themselves should have been fetched when pulling from C<origin>.
04baf1ff 569
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570=head1 Accepting a patch
571
572If you have received a patch file generated using the above section,
573you should try out the patch.
574
575First we need to create a temporary new branch for these changes and
576switch into it:
577
578 % git checkout -b experimental
579
580Patches that were formatted by C<git format-patch> are applied with
581C<git am>:
582
583 % git am 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
584 Applying Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
585
586If just a raw diff is provided, it is also possible use this two-step
587process:
588
589 % git apply bugfix.diff
590 % git commit -a -m "Some fixing" --author="That Guy <that.guy@internets.com>"
edcf105d 591
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592Now we can inspect the change:
593
594 % git show HEAD
595 commit b1b3dab48344cff6de4087efca3dbd63548ab5e2
596 Author: Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
597 Date: Fri Dec 19 17:02:59 2008 +0000
598
599 Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
600
601 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
602 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
603 --- a/AUTHORS
604 +++ b/AUTHORS
605 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
606 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
607 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
608 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
609 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
610 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
611 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
612 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
613 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
614
615If you are a committer to Perl and you think the patch is good, you can
616then merge it into blead then push it out to the main repository:
617
618 % git checkout blead
619 % git merge experimental
620 % git push
621
622If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
623
624 % git checkout blead
625 % git branch -d experimental
626 error: The branch 'experimental' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
627 If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D experimental'.
628 % git branch -D experimental
629 Deleted branch experimental.
630
631=head2 Committing to blead
632
633The 'blead' branch will become the next production release of Perl.
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634
635Before pushing I<any> local change to blead, it's incredibly important
636that you do a few things, lest other committers come after you with
637pitchforks and torches:
638
639=over
640
641=item *
642
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643Make sure you have a good commit message. See L<perlhack/Commit
644message> for details.
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645
646=item *
647
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648Run the test suite. You might not think that one typo fix would break a
649test file. You'd be wrong. Here's an example of where not running the
650suite caused problems. A patch was submitted that added a couple of
651tests to an existing .t. It couldn't possibly affect anything else, so
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652no need to test beyond the single affected .t, right? But, the
653submitter's email address had changed since the last of their
04c692a8 654submissions, and this caused other tests to fail. Running the test
f76a37ee 655target given in the next item would have caught this problem.
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656
657=item *
658
659If you don't run the full test suite, at least C<make test_porting>.
660This will run basic sanity checks. To see which sanity checks, have a
661look in F<t/porting>.
662
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663=item *
664
665If you make any changes that affect miniperl or core routines that have
04baf1ff 666different code paths for miniperl, be sure to run C<make minitest>.
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667This will catch problems that even the full test suite will not catch
668because it runs a subset of tests under miniperl rather than perl.
669
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670=back
671
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672=head3 On merging and rebasing
673
674Simple, one-off commits pushed to the 'blead' branch should be simple
675commits that apply cleanly. In other words, you should make sure your
676work is committed against the current position of blead, so that you can
677push back to the master repository without merging.
678
679Sometimes, blead will move while you're building or testing your
680changes. When this happens, your push will be rejected with a message
681like this:
682
683 To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
684 ! [rejected] blead -> blead (non-fast-forward)
685 error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git'
686 To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
687 Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again. See the
688 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.
689
690When this happens, you can just I<rebase> your work against the new
691position of blead, like this (assuming your remote for the master
692repository is "p5p"):
693
694 $ git fetch p5p
695 $ git rebase p5p/blead
696
697You will see your commits being re-applied, and you will then be able to
c9d1da35 698push safely. More information about rebasing can be found in the
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699documentation for the git-rebase(1) command.
700
701For larger sets of commits that only make sense together, or that would
702benefit from a summary of the set's purpose, you should use a merge
703commit. You should perform your work on a L<topic branch|/Topic
704branches and rewriting history>, which you should regularly rebase
705against blead to ensure that your code is not broken by blead moving.
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706When you have finished your work, please perform a final rebase and
707test. Linear history is something that gets lost with every
708commit on blead, but a final rebase makes the history linear
709again, making it easier for future maintainers to see what has
710happened. Rebase as follows (assuming your work was on the
688cbe00 711branch C<< committer/somework >>):
961bfa8c 712
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713 $ git checkout committer/somework
714 $ git rebase blead
715
716Then you can merge it into master like this:
717
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718 $ git checkout blead
719 $ git merge --no-ff --no-commit committer/somework
720 $ git commit -a
721
722The switches above deserve explanation. C<--no-ff> indicates that even
723if all your work can be applied linearly against blead, a merge commit
724should still be prepared. This ensures that all your work will be shown
725as a side branch, with all its commits merged into the mainstream blead
726by the merge commit.
727
728C<--no-commit> means that the merge commit will be I<prepared> but not
729I<committed>. The commit is then actually performed when you run the
730next command, which will bring up your editor to describe the commit.
731Without C<--no-commit>, the commit would be made with nearly no useful
732message, which would greatly diminish the value of the merge commit as a
733placeholder for the work's description.
734
735When describing the merge commit, explain the purpose of the branch, and
736keep in mind that this description will probably be used by the
737eventual release engineer when reviewing the next perldelta document.
738
04c692a8 739=head2 Committing to maintenance versions
9d68b7ed 740
77db6475
LB
741Maintenance versions should only be altered to add critical bug fixes,
742see L<perlpolicy>.
7f4ffa9d 743
9d68b7ed
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744To commit to a maintenance version of perl, you need to create a local
745tracking branch:
746
747 % git checkout --track -b maint-5.005 origin/maint-5.005
748
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749This creates a local branch named C<maint-5.005>, which tracks the
750remote branch C<origin/maint-5.005>. Then you can pull, commit, merge
751and push as before.
b0d36535 752
f755e97d 753You can also cherry-pick commits from blead and another branch, by
0549aefb
LB
754using the C<git cherry-pick> command. It is recommended to use the
755B<-x> option to C<git cherry-pick> in order to record the SHA1 of the
756original commit in the new commit message.
f755e97d 757
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758Before pushing any change to a maint version, make sure you've
759satisfied the steps in L</Committing to blead> above.
edcf105d 760
04c692a8 761=head2 Merging from a branch via GitHub
bdaf0bc6 762
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763While we don't encourage the submission of patches via GitHub, that
764will still happen. Here is a guide to merging patches from a GitHub
765repository.
bdaf0bc6 766
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767 % git remote add avar git://github.com/avar/perl.git
768 % git fetch avar
041325d6 769
04c692a8 770Now you can see the differences between the branch and blead:
705c800c 771
04c692a8 772 % git diff avar/orange
705c800c 773
04c692a8 774And you can see the commits:
041325d6 775
04c692a8 776 % git log avar/orange
f755e97d 777
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778If you approve of a specific commit, you can cherry pick it:
779
780 % git cherry-pick 0c24b290ae02b2ab3304f51d5e11e85eb3659eae
781
782Or you could just merge the whole branch if you like it all:
783
784 % git merge avar/orange
785
786And then push back to the repository:
787
788 % git push
789
790=head2 A note on camel and dromedary
791
792The committers have SSH access to the two servers that serve
793C<perl5.git.perl.org>. One is C<perl5.git.perl.org> itself (I<camel>),
794which is the 'master' repository. The second one is
795C<users.perl5.git.perl.org> (I<dromedary>), which can be used for
796general testing and development. Dromedary syncs the git tree from
797camel every few minutes, you should not push there. Both machines also
798have a full CPAN mirror in /srv/CPAN, please use this. To share files
799with the general public, dromedary serves your ~/public_html/ as
800C<http://users.perl5.git.perl.org/~yourlogin/>
801
802These hosts have fairly strict firewalls to the outside. Outgoing, only
803rsync, ssh and git are allowed. For http and ftp, you can use
804http://webproxy:3128 as proxy. Incoming, the firewall tries to detect
805attacks and blocks IP addresses with suspicious activity. This
806sometimes (but very rarely) has false positives and you might get
807blocked. The quickest way to get unblocked is to notify the admins.
808
809These two boxes are owned, hosted, and operated by booking.com. You can
810reach the sysadmins in #p5p on irc.perl.org or via mail to
811C<perl5-porters@perl.org>.