4 Consistent formatting of this file is achieved with:
5 perl ./Porting/podtidy pod/perlrepository.pod
9 perlrepository - Using the Perl source repository
13 All of Perl's source code is kept centrally in a Git repository at
14 I<perl5.git.perl.org>. The repository contains many Perl revisions from
15 Perl 1 onwards and all the revisions from Perforce, the version control
16 system we were using previously. This repository is accessible in
19 The full repository takes up about 80MB of disk space. A check out of
20 the blead branch (that is, the main development branch, which contains
21 bleadperl, the development version of perl 5) takes up about 160MB of
22 disk space (including the repository). A build of bleadperl takes up
23 about 200MB (including the repository and the check out).
25 =head1 Getting access to the repository
27 =head2 Read access via the web
29 You may access the repository over the web. This allows you to browse
30 the tree, see recent commits, subscribe to RSS feeds for the changes,
31 search for particular commits and more. You may access it at:
33 http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
35 A mirror of the repository is found at:
37 http://github.com/mirrors/perl
39 =head2 Read access via Git
41 You will need a copy of Git for your computer. You can fetch a copy of
42 the repository using the Git protocol (which uses port 9418):
44 % git clone git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl-git
46 This clones the repository and makes a local copy in the F<perl-git>
49 If your local network does not allow you to use port 9418, then you can
50 fetch a copy of the repository over HTTP (this is at least 4x slower):
52 % git clone http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl-http
54 This clones the repository and makes a local copy in the F<perl-http>
57 =head2 Write access to the repository
59 If you are a committer, then you can fetch a copy of the repository
60 that you can push back on with:
62 % git clone ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl-ssh
64 This clones the repository and makes a local copy in the F<perl-ssh>
67 If you cloned using the git protocol, which is faster than ssh, then
68 you will need to modify the URL for the origin remote to enable
69 pushing. To do that edit F<.git/config> with git-config(1) like this:
71 % git config remote.origin.url ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
73 You can also set up your user name and e-mail address. Most people do
74 this once globally in their F<~/.gitconfig> by doing something like:
76 % git config --global user.name "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason"
77 % git config --global user.email avarab@gmail.com
79 However if you'd like to override that just for perl then execute then
80 execute something like the following in F<perl-git>:
82 % git config user.email avar@cpan.org
84 It is also possible to keep C<origin> as a git remote, and add a new
85 remote for ssh access:
87 % git remote add camel perl5.git.perl.org:/perl.git
89 This allows you to update your local repository by pulling from
90 C<origin>, which is faster and doesn't require you to authenticate, and
91 to push your changes back with the C<camel> remote:
96 The C<fetch> command just updates the C<camel> refs, as the objects
97 themselves should have been fetched when pulling from C<origin>.
99 =head2 A note on camel and dromedary
101 The committers have SSH access to the two servers that serve
102 C<perl5.git.perl.org>. One is C<perl5.git.perl.org> itself (I<camel>),
103 which is the 'master' repository. The second one is
104 C<users.perl5.git.perl.org> (I<dromedary>), which can be used for
105 general testing and development. Dromedary syncs the git tree from
106 camel every few minutes, you should not push there. Both machines also
107 have a full CPAN mirror in /srv/CPAN, please use this. To share files
108 with the general public, dromedary serves your ~/public_html/ as
109 C<http://users.perl5.git.perl.org/~yourlogin/>
111 These hosts have fairly strict firewalls to the outside. Outgoing, only
112 rsync, ssh and git are allowed. For http and ftp, you can use
113 http://webproxy:3128 as proxy. Incoming, the firewall tries to detect
114 attacks and blocks IP addresses with suspicious activity. This
115 sometimes (but very rarely) has false positives and you might get
116 blocked. The quickest way to get unblocked is to notify the admins.
118 These two boxes are owned, hosted, and operated by booking.com. You can
119 reach the sysadmins in #p5p on irc.perl.org or via mail to
120 C<perl5-porters@perl.org>
122 =head1 Overview of the repository
124 Once you have changed into the repository directory, you can inspect
127 After a clone the repository will contain a single local branch, which
128 will be the current branch as well, as indicated by the asterisk.
133 Using the -a switch to C<branch> will also show the remote tracking
134 branches in the repository:
142 The branches that begin with "origin" correspond to the "git remote"
143 that you cloned from (which is named "origin"). Each branch on the
144 remote will be exactly tracked by theses branches. You should NEVER do
145 work on these remote tracking branches. You only ever do work in a
146 local branch. Local branches can be configured to automerge (on pull)
147 from a designated remote tracking branch. This is the case with the
148 default branch C<blead> which will be configured to merge from the
149 remote tracking branch C<origin/blead>.
151 You can see recent commits:
155 And pull new changes from the repository, and update your local
156 repository (must be clean first)
160 Assuming we are on the branch C<blead> immediately after a pull, this
161 command would be more or less equivalent to:
164 % git merge origin/blead
166 In fact if you want to update your local repository without touching
167 your working directory you do:
171 And if you want to update your remote-tracking branches for all defined
172 remotes simultaneously you can do
176 Neither of these last two commands will update your working directory,
177 however both will update the remote-tracking branches in your
180 To make a local branch of a remote branch:
182 % git checkout -b maint-5.10 origin/maint-5.10
184 To switch back to blead:
188 =head2 Finding out your status
190 The most common git command you will use will probably be
194 This command will produce as output a description of the current state
195 of the repository, including modified files and unignored untracked
196 files, and in addition it will show things like what files have been
197 staged for the next commit, and usually some useful information about
198 how to change things. For instance the following:
202 # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 1 commit.
204 # Changes to be committed:
205 # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
207 # modified: pod/perlrepository.pod
209 # Changed but not updated:
210 # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
212 # modified: pod/perlrepository.pod
215 # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
217 # deliberate.untracked
219 This shows that there were changes to this document staged for commit,
220 and that there were further changes in the working directory not yet
221 staged. It also shows that there was an untracked file in the working
222 directory, and as you can see shows how to change all of this. It also
223 shows that there is one commit on the working branch C<blead> which has
224 not been pushed to the C<origin> remote yet. B<NOTE>: that this output
225 is also what you see as a template if you do not provide a message to
228 Assuming that you'd like to commit all the changes you've just made as
229 a a single atomic unit, run this command:
233 (That C<-a> tells git to add every file you've changed to this commit.
234 New files aren't automatically added to your commit when you use
235 C<commit -a> If you want to add files or to commit some, but not all of
236 your changes, have a look at the documentation for C<git add>.)
238 Git will start up your favorite text editor, so that you can craft a
239 commit message for your change. See L</Commit message> below for more
240 information about what makes a good commit message.
242 Once you've finished writing your commit message and exited your
243 editor, git will write your change to disk and tell you something like
246 Created commit daf8e63: explain git status and stuff about remotes
247 1 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
250 If you re-run C<git status>, you should see something like this:
254 # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 2 commits.
257 # (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
259 # deliberate.untracked
260 nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
263 When in doubt, before you do anything else, check your status and read
264 it carefully, many questions are answered directly by the git status
267 =head1 Submitting a patch
269 If you have a patch in mind for Perl, you should first get a copy of
272 % git clone git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl-git
274 Then change into the directory:
278 Alternatively, if you already have a Perl repository, you should ensure
279 that you're on the I<blead> branch, and your repository is up to date:
284 It's preferable to patch against the latest blead version, since this
285 is where new development occurs for all changes other than critical bug
286 fixes. Critical bug fix patches should be made against the relevant
287 maint branches, or should be submitted with a note indicating all the
288 branches where the fix should be applied.
290 Now that we have everything up to date, we need to create a temporary
291 new branch for these changes and switch into it:
293 % git checkout -b orange
295 which is the short form of
298 % git checkout orange
300 Creating a topic branch makes it easier for the maintainers to rebase
301 or merge back into the master blead for a more linear history. If you
302 don't work on a topic branch the maintainer has to manually cherry pick
303 your changes onto blead before they can be applied.
305 That'll get you scolded on perl5-porters, so don't do that. Be Awesome.
307 Then make your changes. For example, if Leon Brocard changes his name
308 to Orange Brocard, we should change his name in the AUTHORS file:
310 % perl -pi -e 's{Leon Brocard}{Orange Brocard}' AUTHORS
312 You can see what files are changed:
316 # Changes to be committed:
317 # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
322 And you can see the changes:
325 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
326 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
329 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
330 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
331 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
332 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
333 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
334 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
335 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
336 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
337 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
339 For changes significant enough to warrant a F<pod/perldelta.pod> entry, the
340 porters would greatly appreciate it if you submit an entry along with your
341 actual change. Significant changes include, but are not limited to:
347 adding, deprecating, or removing core features
351 adding, deprecating, removing, or upgrading core or dual-life modules
355 adding new core tests
359 fixing security issues and user-visible bugs in the core
363 changes that might break existing code, either on the perl or C level
367 significant performance improvements
371 adding, removing, or significantly changing documentation in the F<pod/>
376 important platform-specific changes
380 Please make sure you add the perldelta entry to the right section within
381 F<pod/perldelta.pod>. More information on how to write good perldelta entries is
382 available in the C<Style> section of F<Porting/how_to_write_a_perldelta.pod>.
384 Now commit your change locally:
386 % git commit -a -m 'Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard'
387 Created commit 6196c1d: Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
388 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
390 The C<-a> option is used to include all files that git tracks that you have
391 changed. If at this time, you only want to commit some of the files you have
392 worked on, you can omit the C<-a> and use the command C<S<git add I<FILE ...>>>
393 before doing the commit. C<S<git add --interactive>> allows you to even just
394 commit portions of files instead of all the changes in them.
396 The C<-m> option is used to specify the commit message. If you omit it, git
397 will open a text editor for you to compose the message interactively. This
398 is useful when the changes are more complex than the sample given here, and,
399 depending on the editor, to know that the first line of the commit message
400 doesn't exceed the 50 character legal maximum.
402 You can examine your last commit with:
406 and if you are not happy with either the description or the patch
407 itself you can fix it up by editing the files once more and then issue:
409 % git commit -a --amend
411 Now you should create a patch file for all your local changes:
413 % git format-patch -M origin..
414 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
416 You should now send an email to to
417 L<perlbug@perl.org|mailto:perlbug@perl.org> with a description of your
418 changes, and include this patch file as an attachment. In addition to
419 being tracked by RT, mail to perlbug will automatically be forwarded to
420 perl5-porters (with manual moderation, so please be patient). You should only
421 send patches to L<perl5-porters@perl.org|mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org>
422 directly if the patch is not ready to be applied, but intended for discussion.
424 See the next section for how to configure and use git to send these
427 If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
430 % git branch -d orange
431 error: The branch 'orange' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
432 If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D orange'.
433 % git branch -D orange
434 Deleted branch orange.
436 =head2 Using git to send patch emails
438 In your ~/git/perl repository, set the destination email to perl's bug
441 $ git config sendemail.to perlbug@perl.org
443 Or maybe perl5-porters (discussed above):
445 $ git config sendemail.to perl5-porters@perl.org
447 Then you can use git directly to send your patch emails:
449 $ git send-email 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
451 You may need to set some configuration variables for your particular
452 email service provider. For example, to set your global git config to
453 send email via a gmail account:
455 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpserver smtp.gmail.com
456 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpssl 1
457 $ git config --global sendemail.smtpuser YOURUSERNAME@gmail.com
459 With this configuration, you will be prompted for your gmail password
460 when you run 'git send-email'. You can also configure
461 C<sendemail.smtppass> with your password if you don't care about having
462 your password in the .gitconfig file.
464 =head2 A note on derived files
466 Be aware that many files in the distribution are derivative--avoid
467 patching them, because git won't see the changes to them, and the build
468 process will overwrite them. Patch the originals instead. Most
469 utilities (like perldoc) are in this category, i.e. patch
470 F<utils/perldoc.PL> rather than F<utils/perldoc>. Similarly, don't
471 create patches for files under $src_root/ext from their copies found in
472 $install_root/lib. If you are unsure about the proper location of a
473 file that may have gotten copied while building the source
474 distribution, consult the C<MANIFEST>.
477 What should we recommend about binary files now? Do we need anything?
479 =head2 Getting your patch accepted
481 If you are submitting a code patch there are several things that you
488 As you craft each patch you intend to submit to the Perl core, it's
489 important to write a good commit message.
491 The first line of the commit message should be a short description and
492 should skip the full stop. It should be no longer than the subject line
493 of an E-Mail, 50 characters being a good rule of thumb.
495 A lot of Git tools (Gitweb, GitHub, git log --pretty=oneline, ..) will
496 only display the first line (cut off at 50 characters) when presenting
499 The commit message should include description of the problem that the
500 patch corrects or new functionality that the patch adds.
502 As a general rule of thumb, your commit message should let a programmer
503 with a reasonable familiarity with the Perl core quickly understand
504 what you were trying to do, how you were trying to do it and why the
505 change matters to Perl.
511 Your commit message should describe what part of the Perl core you're
512 changing and what you expect your patch to do.
516 Perhaps most importantly, your commit message should describe why the
517 change you are making is important. When someone looks at your change
518 in six months or six years, your intent should be clear. If you're
519 deprecating a feature with the intent of later simplifying another bit
520 of code, say so. If you're fixing a performance problem or adding a new
521 feature to support some other bit of the core, mention that.
525 While it's not necessary for documentation changes, new tests or
526 trivial patches, it's often worth explaining how your change works.
527 Even if it's clear to you today, it may not be clear to a porter next
532 A commit message isn't intended to take the place of comments in your
533 code. Commit messages should describe the change you made, while code
534 comments should describe the current state of the code. If you've just
535 implemented a new feature, complete with doc, tests and well-commented
536 code, a brief commit message will often suffice. If, however, you've
537 just changed a single character deep in the parser or lexer, you might
538 need to write a small novel to ensure that future readers understand
539 what you did and why you did it.
541 =item Comments, Comments, Comments
543 Be sure to adequately comment your code. While commenting every line
544 is unnecessary, anything that takes advantage of side effects of
545 operators, that creates changes that will be felt outside of the
546 function being patched, or that others may find confusing should be
547 documented. If you are going to err, it is better to err on the side
548 of adding too many comments than too few.
552 In general, please follow the particular style of the code you are
555 In particular, follow these general guidelines for patching Perl
558 8-wide tabs (no exceptions!)
559 4-wide indents for code, 2-wide indents for nested CPP #defines
560 try hard not to exceed 79-columns
562 uncuddled elses and "K&R" style for indenting control constructs
563 no C++ style (//) comments
564 mark places that need to be revisited with XXX (and revisit often!)
565 opening brace lines up with "if" when conditional spans multiple
566 lines; should be at end-of-line otherwise
567 in function definitions, name starts in column 0 (return value is on
569 single space after keywords that are followed by parens, no space
570 between function name and following paren
571 avoid assignments in conditionals, but if they're unavoidable, use
572 extra paren, e.g. "if (a && (b = c)) ..."
573 "return foo;" rather than "return(foo);"
574 "if (!foo) ..." rather than "if (foo == FALSE) ..." etc.
578 If your patch changes code (rather than just changing documentation)
579 you should also include one or more test cases which illustrate the bug
580 you're fixing or validate the new functionality you're adding. In
581 general, you should update an existing test file rather than create a
584 Your testsuite additions should generally follow these guidelines
585 (courtesy of Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>):
587 Know what you're testing. Read the docs, and the source.
588 Tend to fail, not succeed.
589 Interpret results strictly.
590 Use unrelated features (this will flush out bizarre interactions).
591 Use non-standard idioms (otherwise you are not testing TIMTOWTDI).
592 Avoid using hardcoded test numbers whenever possible (the
593 EXPECTED/GOT found in t/op/tie.t is much more maintainable,
594 and gives better failure reports).
595 Give meaningful error messages when a test fails.
596 Avoid using qx// and system() unless you are testing for them. If you
597 do use them, make sure that you cover _all_ perl platforms.
598 Unlink any temporary files you create.
599 Promote unforeseen warnings to errors with $SIG{__WARN__}.
600 Be sure to use the libraries and modules shipped with the version
601 being tested, not those that were already installed.
602 Add comments to the code explaining what you are testing for.
603 Make updating the '1..42' string unnecessary. Or make sure that
605 Test _all_ behaviors of a given operator, library, or function:
606 - All optional arguments
607 - Return values in various contexts (boolean, scalar, list, lvalue)
608 - Use both global and lexical variables
609 - Don't forget the exceptional, pathological cases.
613 =head1 Accepting a patch
615 If you have received a patch file generated using the above section,
616 you should try out the patch.
618 First we need to create a temporary new branch for these changes and
621 % git checkout -b experimental
623 Patches that were formatted by C<git format-patch> are applied with
626 % git am 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
627 Applying Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
629 If just a raw diff is provided, it is also possible use this two-step
632 % git apply bugfix.diff
633 % git commit -a -m "Some fixing" --author="That Guy <that.guy@internets.com>"
635 Now we can inspect the change:
638 commit b1b3dab48344cff6de4087efca3dbd63548ab5e2
639 Author: Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
640 Date: Fri Dec 19 17:02:59 2008 +0000
642 Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
644 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
645 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
648 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
649 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
650 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
651 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
652 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
653 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
654 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
655 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
656 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
658 If you are a committer to Perl and you think the patch is good, you can
659 then merge it into blead then push it out to the main repository:
662 % git merge experimental
665 If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
668 % git branch -d experimental
669 error: The branch 'experimental' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
670 If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D experimental'.
671 % git branch -D experimental
672 Deleted branch experimental.
674 =head1 Cleaning a working directory
676 The command C<git clean> can with varying arguments be used as a
677 replacement for C<make clean>.
679 To reset your working directory to a pristine condition you can do:
683 However, be aware this will delete ALL untracked content. You can use
687 to remove all ignored untracked files, such as build and test
688 byproduct, but leave any manually created files alone.
690 If you only want to cancel some uncommitted edits, you can use C<git
691 checkout> and give it a list of files to be reverted, or C<git checkout
692 -f> to revert them all.
694 If you want to cancel one or several commits, you can use C<git reset>.
698 C<git> provides a built-in way to determine, with a binary search in
699 the history, which commit should be blamed for introducing a given bug.
701 Suppose that we have a script F<~/testcase.pl> that exits with C<0>
702 when some behaviour is correct, and with C<1> when it's faulty. You
703 need an helper script that automates building C<perl> and running the
710 # If you get './makedepend: 1: Syntax error: Unterminated quoted
711 # string' when bisecting versions of perl older than 5.9.5 this hack
712 # will work around the bug in makedepend.SH which was fixed in
713 # version 96a8704c. Make sure to comment out `git checkout makedepend.SH'
715 git show blead:makedepend.SH > makedepend.SH
717 # If you can use ccache, add -Dcc=ccache\ gcc -Dld=gcc to the Configure line
718 # if Encode is not needed for the test, you can speed up the bisect by
719 # excluding it from the runs with -Dnoextensions=Encode
720 sh Configure -des -Dusedevel -Doptimize="-g"
721 test -f config.sh || exit 125
722 # Correct makefile for newer GNU gcc
723 perl -ni -we 'print unless /<(?:built-in|command)/' makefile x2p/makefile
724 # if you just need miniperl, replace test_prep with miniperl
726 [ -x ./perl ] || exit 125
727 ./perl -Ilib ~/testcase.pl
729 [ $ret -gt 127 ] && ret=127
730 # git checkout makedepend.SH
734 This script may return C<125> to indicate that the corresponding commit
735 should be skipped. Otherwise, it returns the status of
738 You first enter in bisect mode with:
742 For example, if the bug is present on C<HEAD> but wasn't in 5.10.0,
743 C<git> will learn about this when you enter:
746 % git bisect good perl-5.10.0
747 Bisecting: 853 revisions left to test after this
749 This results in checking out the median commit between C<HEAD> and
750 C<perl-5.10.0>. You can then run the bisecting process with:
752 % git bisect run ~/run
754 When the first bad commit is isolated, C<git bisect> will tell you so:
756 ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5 is first bad commit
757 commit ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5
758 Author: Dave Mitchell <davem@fdisolutions.com>
759 Date: Sat Feb 9 14:56:23 2008 +0000
761 [perl #49472] Attributes + Unknown Error
766 You can peek into the bisecting process with C<git bisect log> and
767 C<git bisect visualize>. C<git bisect reset> will get you out of bisect
770 Please note that the first C<good> state must be an ancestor of the
771 first C<bad> state. If you want to search for the commit that I<solved>
772 some bug, you have to negate your test case (i.e. exit with C<1> if OK
773 and C<0> if not) and still mark the lower bound as C<good> and the
774 upper as C<bad>. The "first bad commit" has then to be understood as
775 the "first commit where the bug is solved".
777 C<git help bisect> has much more information on how you can tweak your
780 =head1 Submitting a patch via GitHub
782 GitHub is a website that makes it easy to fork and publish projects
783 with Git. First you should set up a GitHub account and log in.
785 Perl's git repository is mirrored on GitHub at this page:
787 http://github.com/mirrors/perl/tree/blead
789 Visit the page and click the "fork" button. This clones the Perl git
790 repository for you and provides you with "Your Clone URL" from which
793 % git clone git@github.com:USERNAME/perl.git perl-github
795 The same patch as above, using github might look like this:
798 % git remote add upstream git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
799 % git pull upstream blead
800 % git checkout -b orange
801 % perl -pi -e 's{Leon Brocard}{Orange Brocard}' AUTHORS
802 % git commit -a -m 'Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard'
803 % git push origin orange
805 The orange branch has been pushed to GitHub, so you should now send an
806 email (see L</Submitting a patch>) with a description of your changes
807 and the following information:
809 http://github.com/USERNAME/perl/tree/orange
810 git://github.com/USERNAME/perl.git branch orange
812 =head1 Merging from a branch via GitHub
814 If someone has provided a branch via GitHub and you are a committer,
815 you should use the following in your perl-ssh directory:
817 % git remote add avar git://github.com/avar/perl.git
820 Now you can see the differences between the branch and blead:
822 % git diff avar/orange
824 And you can see the commits:
826 % git log avar/orange
828 If you approve of a specific commit, you can cherry pick it:
830 % git cherry-pick 0c24b290ae02b2ab3304f51d5e11e85eb3659eae
832 Or you could just merge the whole branch if you like it all:
834 % git merge avar/orange
836 And then push back to the repository:
841 =head1 Topic branches and rewriting history
843 Individual committers should create topic branches under
844 B<yourname>/B<some_descriptive_name>. Other committers should check
845 with a topic branch's creator before making any change to it.
847 The simplest way to create a remote topic branch that works on all
848 versions of git is to push the current head as a new branch on the
849 remote, then check it out locally:
851 $ branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
852 $ git push origin HEAD:$branch
853 $ git checkout -b $branch origin/$branch
855 Users of git 1.7 or newer can do it in a more obvious manner:
857 $ branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
858 $ git checkout -b $branch
859 $ git push origin -u $branch
861 If you are not the creator of B<yourname>/B<some_descriptive_name>, you
862 might sometimes find that the original author has edited the branch's
863 history. There are lots of good reasons for this. Sometimes, an author
864 might simply be rebasing the branch onto a newer source point.
865 Sometimes, an author might have found an error in an early commit which
866 they wanted to fix before merging the branch to blead.
868 Currently the master repository is configured to forbid
869 non-fast-forward merges. This means that the branches within can not
870 be rebased and pushed as a single step.
872 The only way you will ever be allowed to rebase or modify the history
873 of a pushed branch is to delete it and push it as a new branch under
874 the same name. Please think carefully about doing this. It may be
875 better to sequentially rename your branches so that it is easier for
876 others working with you to cherry-pick their local changes onto the new
877 version. (XXX: needs explanation).
879 If you want to rebase a personal topic branch, you will have to delete
880 your existing topic branch and push as a new version of it. You can do
881 this via the following formula (see the explanation about C<refspec>'s
882 in the git push documentation for details) after you have rebased your
886 $ git checkout $user/$topic
888 $ git rebase origin/blead
890 # then "delete-and-push"
891 $ git push origin :$user/$topic
892 $ git push origin $user/$topic
894 B<NOTE:> it is forbidden at the repository level to delete any of the
895 "primary" branches. That is any branch matching
896 C<m!^(blead|maint|perl)!>. Any attempt to do so will result in git
897 producing an error like this:
899 $ git push origin :blead
900 *** It is forbidden to delete blead/maint branches in this repository
901 error: hooks/update exited with error code 1
902 error: hook declined to update refs/heads/blead
903 To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl
904 ! [remote rejected] blead (hook declined)
905 error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl'
907 As a matter of policy we do B<not> edit the history of the blead and
908 maint-* branches. If a typo (or worse) sneaks into a commit to blead or
909 maint-*, we'll fix it in another commit. The only types of updates
910 allowed on these branches are "fast-forward's", where all history is
913 Annotated tags in the canonical perl.git repository will never be
914 deleted or modified. Think long and hard about whether you want to push
915 a local tag to perl.git before doing so. (Pushing unannotated tags is
918 =head1 Committing to blead
920 If you are a committer, you have the right to commit changes directly to
921 the 'blead' branch, which will become the next production release of Perl.
923 Before pushing I<any> local change to blead, it's incredibly important
924 that you do a few things, lest other committers come after you with
925 pitchforks and torches:
931 Make sure you have a good commit message. See L</Commit message> elsewhere in
936 Run the test suite. You might not think that one typo fix would break
937 a test file. You'd be wrong. Here's an example of where not running the
938 suite caused problems. A patch was submitted that added a couple of
939 tests to an existing .t. It couldn't possibly affect anything else, so
940 no need to test beyond the single affected .t, right? But, the
941 submitter's email address had changed since the last of their
942 submissions, and this caused other tests to fail. Running the test
943 target given in the next item would have caught this problem.
947 If you don't run the full test suite, at least C<make test_porting>.
948 This will run basic sanity checks. To see which sanity checks, have a
949 look in F<t/porting>.
953 =head1 Committing to maintenance versions
955 Maintenance versions should only be altered to add critical bug fixes,
958 To commit to a maintenance version of perl, you need to create a local
961 % git checkout --track -b maint-5.005 origin/maint-5.005
963 This creates a local branch named C<maint-5.005>, which tracks the
964 remote branch C<origin/maint-5.005>. Then you can pull, commit, merge
967 You can also cherry-pick commits from blead and another branch, by
968 using the C<git cherry-pick> command. It is recommended to use the
969 B<-x> option to C<git cherry-pick> in order to record the SHA1 of the
970 original commit in the new commit message.
972 Before pushing any change to a maint version, make sure you've satisfied
973 the steps in L</Committing to blead> above.
977 The perl history contains one mistake which was not caught in the
978 conversion: a merge was recorded in the history between blead and
979 maint-5.10 where no merge actually occurred. Due to the nature of git,
980 this is now impossible to fix in the public repository. You can remove
981 this mis-merge locally by adding the following line to your
982 C<.git/info/grafts> file:
984 296f12bbbbaa06de9be9d09d3dcf8f4528898a49 434946e0cb7a32589ed92d18008aaa1d88515930
986 It is particularly important to have this graft line if any bisecting
987 is done in the area of the "merge" in question.
995 The git documentation, accessible via the C<git help> command
999 L<perlpolicy> - Perl core development policy