4 Consistent formatting of this file is achieved with:
5 perl ./Porting/podtidy pod/perlgit.pod
9 perlgit - Detailed information about git and the Perl repository
13 This document provides details on using git to develop Perl. If you are
14 just interested in working on a quick patch, see L<perlhack> first.
15 This document is intended for people who are regular contributors to
16 Perl, including those with write access to the git repository.
18 =head1 CLONING THE REPOSITORY
20 All of Perl's source code is kept centrally in a Git repository at
23 You can make a read-only clone of the repository by running:
25 % git clone git://github.com/Perl/perl5.git perl
27 This uses the git protocol (port 9418).
29 If you cannot use the git protocol for firewall reasons, you can also
32 % git clone https://github.com/Perl/perl5.git perl
34 =head1 WORKING WITH THE REPOSITORY
36 Once you have changed into the repository directory, you can inspect
37 it. After a clone the repository will contain a single local branch,
38 which will be the current branch as well, as indicated by the asterisk.
43 Using the -a switch to C<branch> will also show the remote tracking
44 branches in the repository:
52 The branches that begin with "origin" correspond to the "git remote"
53 that you cloned from (which is named "origin"). Each branch on the
54 remote will be exactly tracked by these branches. You should NEVER do
55 work on these remote tracking branches. You only ever do work in a
56 local branch. Local branches can be configured to automerge (on pull)
57 from a designated remote tracking branch. This is the case with the
58 default branch C<blead> which will be configured to merge from the
59 remote tracking branch C<origin/blead>.
61 You can see recent commits:
65 And pull new changes from the repository, and update your local
66 repository (must be clean first)
70 Assuming we are on the branch C<blead> immediately after a pull, this
71 command would be more or less equivalent to:
74 % git merge origin/blead
76 In fact if you want to update your local repository without touching
77 your working directory you do:
81 And if you want to update your remote-tracking branches for all defined
82 remotes simultaneously you can do
86 Neither of these last two commands will update your working directory,
87 however both will update the remote-tracking branches in your
90 To make a local branch of a remote branch:
92 % git checkout -b maint-5.10 origin/maint-5.10
94 To switch back to blead:
98 =head2 Finding out your status
100 The most common git command you will use will probably be
104 This command will produce as output a description of the current state
105 of the repository, including modified files and unignored untracked
106 files, and in addition it will show things like what files have been
107 staged for the next commit, and usually some useful information about
108 how to change things. For instance the following:
112 Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 1 commit.
114 Changes to be committed:
115 (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
117 modified: pod/perlgit.pod
119 Changes not staged for commit:
120 (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
121 (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working
124 modified: pod/perlgit.pod
127 (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
131 This shows that there were changes to this document staged for commit,
132 and that there were further changes in the working directory not yet
133 staged. It also shows that there was an untracked file in the working
134 directory, and as you can see shows how to change all of this. It also
135 shows that there is one commit on the working branch C<blead> which has
136 not been pushed to the C<origin> remote yet. B<NOTE>: This output
137 is also what you see as a template if you do not provide a message to
140 =head2 Patch workflow
142 First, please read L<perlhack> for details on hacking the Perl core.
143 That document covers many details on how to create a good patch.
145 If you already have a Perl repository, you should ensure that you're on
146 the I<blead> branch, and your repository is up to date:
151 It's preferable to patch against the latest blead version, since this
152 is where new development occurs for all changes other than critical bug
153 fixes. Critical bug fix patches should be made against the relevant
154 maint branches, or should be submitted with a note indicating all the
155 branches where the fix should be applied.
157 Now that we have everything up to date, we need to create a temporary
158 new branch for these changes and switch into it:
160 % git checkout -b orange
162 which is the short form of
165 % git checkout orange
167 Creating a topic branch makes it easier for the maintainers to rebase
168 or merge back into the master blead for a more linear history. If you
169 don't work on a topic branch the maintainer has to manually cherry pick
170 your changes onto blead before they can be applied.
172 That'll get you scolded on perl5-porters, so don't do that. Be Awesome.
174 Then make your changes. For example, if Leon Brocard changes his name
175 to Orange Brocard, we should change his name in the AUTHORS file:
177 % perl -pi -e 's{Leon Brocard}{Orange Brocard}' AUTHORS
179 You can see what files are changed:
183 Changes to be committed:
184 (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
188 And you can see the changes:
191 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
192 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
195 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
196 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
197 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
198 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
199 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
200 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
201 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
202 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
203 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
205 Now commit your change locally:
207 % git commit -a -m 'Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard'
208 Created commit 6196c1d: Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
209 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
211 The C<-a> option is used to include all files that git tracks that you
212 have changed. If at this time, you only want to commit some of the
213 files you have worked on, you can omit the C<-a> and use the command
214 C<S<git add I<FILE ...>>> before doing the commit. C<S<git add
215 --interactive>> allows you to even just commit portions of files
216 instead of all the changes in them.
218 The C<-m> option is used to specify the commit message. If you omit it,
219 git will open a text editor for you to compose the message
220 interactively. This is useful when the changes are more complex than
221 the sample given here, and, depending on the editor, to know that the
222 first line of the commit message doesn't exceed the 50 character legal
223 maximum. See L<perlhack/Commit message> for more information about what
224 makes a good commit message.
226 Once you've finished writing your commit message and exited your
227 editor, git will write your change to disk and tell you something like
230 Created commit daf8e63: explain git status and stuff about remotes
231 1 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
233 If you re-run C<git status>, you should see something like this:
238 (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
242 nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to
245 When in doubt, before you do anything else, check your status and read
246 it carefully, many questions are answered directly by the git status
249 You can examine your last commit with:
253 and if you are not happy with either the description or the patch
254 itself you can fix it up by editing the files once more and then issue:
256 % git commit -a --amend
258 Now, create a fork on GitHub to push your branch to, and add it as a
259 remote if you haven't already, as described in the GitHub documentation
260 at L<https://help.github.com/en/articles/working-with-forks>:
262 % git remote add fork git@github.com:MyUser/perl5.git
264 And push the branch to your fork:
266 % git push -u fork orange
268 You should now submit a Pull Request (PR) on GitHub from the new branch
269 to blead. For more information, see the GitHub documentation at
270 L<https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-pull-request-from-a-fork>.
272 You can also send patch files to
273 L<perl5-porters@perl.org|mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org> directly if the
274 patch is not ready to be applied, but intended for discussion.
276 To create a patch file for all your local changes:
278 % git format-patch -M blead..
279 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
281 Or for a lot of changes, e.g. from a topic branch:
283 % git format-patch --stdout -M blead.. > topic-branch-changes.patch
285 If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
288 % git branch -d orange
289 error: The branch 'orange' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
290 If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D orange'.
291 % git branch -D orange
292 Deleted branch orange.
294 =head2 A note on derived files
296 Be aware that many files in the distribution are derivative--avoid
297 patching them, because git won't see the changes to them, and the build
298 process will overwrite them. Patch the originals instead. Most
299 utilities (like perldoc) are in this category, i.e. patch
300 F<utils/perldoc.PL> rather than F<utils/perldoc>. Similarly, don't
301 create patches for files under F<$src_root/ext> from their copies found
302 in F<$install_root/lib>. If you are unsure about the proper location of
303 a file that may have gotten copied while building the source
304 distribution, consult the F<MANIFEST>.
306 =head2 Cleaning a working directory
308 The command C<git clean> can with varying arguments be used as a
309 replacement for C<make clean>.
311 To reset your working directory to a pristine condition you can do:
315 However, be aware this will delete ALL untracked content. You can use
319 to remove all ignored untracked files, such as build and test
320 byproduct, but leave any manually created files alone.
322 If you only want to cancel some uncommitted edits, you can use C<git
323 checkout> and give it a list of files to be reverted, or C<git checkout
324 -f> to revert them all.
326 If you want to cancel one or several commits, you can use C<git reset>.
330 C<git> provides a built-in way to determine which commit should be blamed
331 for introducing a given bug. C<git bisect> performs a binary search of
332 history to locate the first failing commit. It is fast, powerful and
333 flexible, but requires some setup and to automate the process an auxiliary
334 shell script is needed.
336 The core provides a wrapper program, F<Porting/bisect.pl>, which attempts to
337 simplify as much as possible, making bisecting as simple as running a Perl
338 one-liner. For example, if you want to know when this became an error:
344 .../Porting/bisect.pl -e 'my $a := 2;'
346 Using F<Porting/bisect.pl>, with one command (and no other files) it's easy to
353 Which commit caused this example code to break?
357 Which commit caused this example code to start working?
361 Which commit added the first file to match this regex?
365 Which commit removed the last file to match this regex?
369 usually without needing to know which versions of perl to use as start and
370 end revisions, as F<Porting/bisect.pl> automatically searches to find the
371 earliest stable version for which the test case passes. Run
372 C<Porting/bisect.pl --help> for the full documentation, including how to
373 set the C<Configure> and build time options.
375 If you require more flexibility than F<Porting/bisect.pl> has to offer, you'll
376 need to run C<git bisect> yourself. It's most useful to use C<git bisect run>
377 to automate the building and testing of perl revisions. For this you'll need
378 a shell script for C<git> to call to test a particular revision. An example
379 script is F<Porting/bisect-example.sh>, which you should copy B<outside> of
380 the repository, as the bisect process will reset the state to a clean checkout
381 as it runs. The instructions below assume that you copied it as F<~/run> and
382 then edited it as appropriate.
384 You first enter in bisect mode with:
388 For example, if the bug is present on C<HEAD> but wasn't in 5.10.0,
389 C<git> will learn about this when you enter:
392 % git bisect good perl-5.10.0
393 Bisecting: 853 revisions left to test after this
395 This results in checking out the median commit between C<HEAD> and
396 C<perl-5.10.0>. You can then run the bisecting process with:
398 % git bisect run ~/run
400 When the first bad commit is isolated, C<git bisect> will tell you so:
402 ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5 is first bad commit
403 commit ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5
404 Author: Dave Mitchell <davem@fdisolutions.com>
405 Date: Sat Feb 9 14:56:23 2008 +0000
407 [perl #49472] Attributes + Unknown Error
412 You can peek into the bisecting process with C<git bisect log> and
413 C<git bisect visualize>. C<git bisect reset> will get you out of bisect
416 Please note that the first C<good> state must be an ancestor of the
417 first C<bad> state. If you want to search for the commit that I<solved>
418 some bug, you have to negate your test case (i.e. exit with C<1> if OK
419 and C<0> if not) and still mark the lower bound as C<good> and the
420 upper as C<bad>. The "first bad commit" has then to be understood as
421 the "first commit where the bug is solved".
423 C<git help bisect> has much more information on how you can tweak your
426 Following bisection you may wish to configure, build and test perl at
427 commits identified by the bisection process. Sometimes, particularly
428 with older perls, C<make> may fail during this process. In this case
429 you may be able to patch the source code at the older commit point. To
430 do so, please follow the suggestions provided in
431 L<perlhack/Building perl at older commits>.
433 =head2 Topic branches and rewriting history
435 Individual committers should create topic branches under
436 B<yourname>/B<some_descriptive_name>:
438 % branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
439 % git checkout -b $branch
440 ... do local edits, commits etc ...
441 % git push origin -u $branch
443 Should you be stuck with an ancient version of git (prior to 1.7), then
444 C<git push> will not have the C<-u> switch, and you have to replace the
445 last step with the following sequence:
447 % git push origin $branch:refs/heads/$branch
448 % git config branch.$branch.remote origin
449 % git config branch.$branch.merge refs/heads/$branch
451 If you want to make changes to someone else's topic branch, you should
452 check with its creator before making any change to it.
455 might sometimes find that the original author has edited the branch's
456 history. There are lots of good reasons for this. Sometimes, an author
457 might simply be rebasing the branch onto a newer source point.
458 Sometimes, an author might have found an error in an early commit which
459 they wanted to fix before merging the branch to blead.
461 Currently the master repository is configured to forbid
462 non-fast-forward merges. This means that the branches within can not be
463 rebased and pushed as a single step.
465 The only way you will ever be allowed to rebase or modify the history
466 of a pushed branch is to delete it and push it as a new branch under
467 the same name. Please think carefully about doing this. It may be
468 better to sequentially rename your branches so that it is easier for
469 others working with you to cherry-pick their local changes onto the new
470 version. (XXX: needs explanation).
472 If you want to rebase a personal topic branch, you will have to delete
473 your existing topic branch and push as a new version of it. You can do
474 this via the following formula (see the explanation about C<refspec>'s
475 in the git push documentation for details) after you have rebased your
479 % git checkout $user/$topic
481 % git rebase origin/blead
483 # then "delete-and-push"
484 % git push origin :$user/$topic
485 % git push origin $user/$topic
487 B<NOTE:> it is forbidden at the repository level to delete any of the
488 "primary" branches. That is any branch matching
489 C<m!^(blead|maint|perl)!>. Any attempt to do so will result in git
490 producing an error like this:
492 % git push origin :blead
493 *** It is forbidden to delete blead/maint branches in this repository
494 error: hooks/update exited with error code 1
495 error: hook declined to update refs/heads/blead
496 To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl
497 ! [remote rejected] blead (hook declined)
498 error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl'
500 As a matter of policy we do B<not> edit the history of the blead and
501 maint-* branches. If a typo (or worse) sneaks into a commit to blead or
502 maint-*, we'll fix it in another commit. The only types of updates
503 allowed on these branches are "fast-forwards", where all history is
506 Annotated tags in the canonical perl.git repository will never be
507 deleted or modified. Think long and hard about whether you want to push
508 a local tag to perl.git before doing so. (Pushing simple tags is
513 The perl history contains one mistake which was not caught in the
514 conversion: a merge was recorded in the history between blead and
515 maint-5.10 where no merge actually occurred. Due to the nature of git,
516 this is now impossible to fix in the public repository. You can remove
517 this mis-merge locally by adding the following line to your
518 C<.git/info/grafts> file:
520 296f12bbbbaa06de9be9d09d3dcf8f4528898a49 434946e0cb7a32589ed92d18008aaa1d88515930
522 It is particularly important to have this graft line if any bisecting
523 is done in the area of the "merge" in question.
525 =head1 WRITE ACCESS TO THE GIT REPOSITORY
527 Once you have write access, you will need to modify the URL for the
528 origin remote to enable pushing. Edit F<.git/config> with the
529 git-config(1) command:
531 % git config remote.origin.url git@github.com:Perl/perl5.git
533 You can also set up your user name and e-mail address. Most people do
534 this once globally in their F<~/.gitconfig> by doing something like:
536 % git config --global user.name "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason"
537 % git config --global user.email avarab@gmail.com
539 However, if you'd like to override that just for perl,
540 execute something like the following in F<perl>:
542 % git config user.email avar@cpan.org
544 It is also possible to keep C<origin> as a git remote, and add a new
545 remote for ssh access:
547 % git remote add camel git@github.com:Perl/perl5.git
549 This allows you to update your local repository by pulling from
550 C<origin>, which is faster and doesn't require you to authenticate, and
551 to push your changes back with the C<camel> remote:
556 The C<fetch> command just updates the C<camel> refs, as the objects
557 themselves should have been fetched when pulling from C<origin>.
559 =head2 Accepting a patch
561 If you have received a patch file generated using the above section,
562 you should try out the patch.
564 First we need to create a temporary new branch for these changes and
567 % git checkout -b experimental
569 Patches that were formatted by C<git format-patch> are applied with
572 % git am 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
573 Applying Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
575 Note that some UNIX mail systems can mess with text attachments containing
576 'From '. This will fix them up:
578 % perl -pi -e's/^>From /From /' \
579 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
581 If just a raw diff is provided, it is also possible use this two-step
584 % git apply bugfix.diff
585 % git commit -a -m "Some fixing" \
586 --author="That Guy <that.guy@internets.com>"
588 Now we can inspect the change:
591 commit b1b3dab48344cff6de4087efca3dbd63548ab5e2
592 Author: Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
593 Date: Fri Dec 19 17:02:59 2008 +0000
595 Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
597 diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
598 index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
601 @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
602 Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>
603 Leif Huhn <leif@hale.dkstat.com>
604 Len Johnson <lenjay@ibm.net>
605 -Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
606 +Orange Brocard <acme@astray.com>
607 Les Peters <lpeters@aol.net>
608 Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@gmail.com>
609 Lincoln D. Stein <lstein@cshl.org>
611 If you are a committer to Perl and you think the patch is good, you can
612 then merge it into blead then push it out to the main repository:
615 % git merge experimental
616 % git push origin blead
618 If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
621 % git branch -d experimental
622 error: The branch 'experimental' is not an ancestor of your current
623 HEAD. If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D
625 % git branch -D experimental
626 Deleted branch experimental.
628 =head2 Committing to blead
630 The 'blead' branch will become the next production release of Perl.
632 Before pushing I<any> local change to blead, it's incredibly important
633 that you do a few things, lest other committers come after you with
634 pitchforks and torches:
640 Make sure you have a good commit message. See L<perlhack/Commit
641 message> for details.
645 Run the test suite. You might not think that one typo fix would break a
646 test file. You'd be wrong. Here's an example of where not running the
647 suite caused problems. A patch was submitted that added a couple of
648 tests to an existing F<.t>. It couldn't possibly affect anything else, so
649 no need to test beyond the single affected F<.t>, right? But, the
650 submitter's email address had changed since the last of their
651 submissions, and this caused other tests to fail. Running the test
652 target given in the next item would have caught this problem.
656 If you don't run the full test suite, at least C<make test_porting>.
657 This will run basic sanity checks. To see which sanity checks, have a
658 look in F<t/porting>.
662 If you make any changes that affect miniperl or core routines that have
663 different code paths for miniperl, be sure to run C<make minitest>.
664 This will catch problems that even the full test suite will not catch
665 because it runs a subset of tests under miniperl rather than perl.
669 =head2 On merging and rebasing
671 Simple, one-off commits pushed to the 'blead' branch should be simple
672 commits that apply cleanly. In other words, you should make sure your
673 work is committed against the current position of blead, so that you can
674 push back to the master repository without merging.
676 Sometimes, blead will move while you're building or testing your
677 changes. When this happens, your push will be rejected with a message
680 To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
681 ! [rejected] blead -> blead (non-fast-forward)
682 error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git'
683 To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were
684 rejected Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing
685 again. See the 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help'
688 When this happens, you can just I<rebase> your work against the new
689 position of blead, like this (assuming your remote for the master
690 repository is "p5p"):
693 % git rebase p5p/blead
695 You will see your commits being re-applied, and you will then be able to
696 push safely. More information about rebasing can be found in the
697 documentation for the git-rebase(1) command.
699 For larger sets of commits that only make sense together, or that would
700 benefit from a summary of the set's purpose, you should use a merge
701 commit. You should perform your work on a L<topic branch|/Topic
702 branches and rewriting history>, which you should regularly rebase
703 against blead to ensure that your code is not broken by blead moving.
704 When you have finished your work, please perform a final rebase and
705 test. Linear history is something that gets lost with every
706 commit on blead, but a final rebase makes the history linear
707 again, making it easier for future maintainers to see what has
708 happened. Rebase as follows (assuming your work was on the
709 branch C<< committer/somework >>):
711 % git checkout committer/somework
714 Then you can merge it into master like this:
717 % git merge --no-ff --no-commit committer/somework
720 The switches above deserve explanation. C<--no-ff> indicates that even
721 if all your work can be applied linearly against blead, a merge commit
722 should still be prepared. This ensures that all your work will be shown
723 as a side branch, with all its commits merged into the mainstream blead
726 C<--no-commit> means that the merge commit will be I<prepared> but not
727 I<committed>. The commit is then actually performed when you run the
728 next command, which will bring up your editor to describe the commit.
729 Without C<--no-commit>, the commit would be made with nearly no useful
730 message, which would greatly diminish the value of the merge commit as a
731 placeholder for the work's description.
733 When describing the merge commit, explain the purpose of the branch, and
734 keep in mind that this description will probably be used by the
735 eventual release engineer when reviewing the next perldelta document.
737 =head2 Committing to maintenance versions
739 Maintenance versions should only be altered to add critical bug fixes,
742 To commit to a maintenance version of perl, you need to create a local
745 % git checkout --track -b maint-5.005 origin/maint-5.005
747 This creates a local branch named C<maint-5.005>, which tracks the
748 remote branch C<origin/maint-5.005>. Then you can pull, commit, merge
751 You can also cherry-pick commits from blead and another branch, by
752 using the C<git cherry-pick> command. It is recommended to use the
753 B<-x> option to C<git cherry-pick> in order to record the SHA1 of the
754 original commit in the new commit message.
756 Before pushing any change to a maint version, make sure you've
757 satisfied the steps in L</Committing to blead> above.
759 =head2 Using a smoke-me branch to test changes
761 Sometimes a change affects code paths which you cannot test on the OSes
762 which are directly available to you and it would be wise to have users
763 on other OSes test the change before you commit it to blead.
765 Fortunately, there is a way to get your change smoke-tested on various
766 OSes: push it to a "smoke-me" branch and wait for certain automated
767 smoke-testers to report the results from their OSes.
768 A "smoke-me" branch is identified by the branch name: specifically, as
769 seen on github.com it must be a local branch whose first name
770 component is precisely C<smoke-me>.
772 The procedure for doing this is roughly as follows (using the example of
773 tonyc's smoke-me branch called win32stat):
775 First, make a local branch and switch to it:
777 % git checkout -b win32stat
779 Make some changes, build perl and test your changes, then commit them to
780 your local branch. Then push your local branch to a remote smoke-me
783 % git push origin win32stat:smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat
785 Now you can switch back to blead locally:
789 and continue working on other things while you wait a day or two,
790 keeping an eye on the results reported for your smoke-me branch at
791 L<http://perl.develop-help.com/?b=smoke-me/tonyc/win32state>.
793 If all is well then update your blead branch:
797 then checkout your smoke-me branch once more and rebase it on blead:
799 % git rebase blead win32stat
801 Now switch back to blead and merge your smoke-me branch into it:
804 % git merge win32stat
806 As described earlier, if there are many changes on your smoke-me branch
807 then you should prepare a merge commit in which to give an overview of
808 those changes by using the following command instead of the last
811 % git merge win32stat --no-ff --no-commit
813 You should now build perl and test your (merged) changes one last time
814 (ideally run the whole test suite, but failing that at least run the
815 F<t/porting/*.t> tests) before pushing your changes as usual:
817 % git push origin blead
819 Finally, you should then delete the remote smoke-me branch:
821 % git push origin :smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat
823 (which is likely to produce a warning like this, which can be ignored:
825 remote: fatal: ambiguous argument
826 'refs/heads/smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat':
827 unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
828 remote: Use '--' to separate paths from revisions
830 ) and then delete your local branch:
832 % git branch -d win32stat