Re: How can I tell if a file has been updated upstream?

["Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org>]

Timur Tabi <timur@freescale.com> wrote:
> Is there a way for me to tell if a particular file in my repository
> has an update in the upstream repository?  For example, the SHA of the
> HEAD is different in the remote repository than it is of the HEAD in
> the local repository.
> 
> The reason I ask is that I have a set of Python scripts that I
> distribute via git (other people in the company clone my repository).
> I want my script, every time it's run, to check if an update is
> available, and ask the user to do "git pull".

You can't tell a particular file, but you could use something like
`git ls-remote refs/heads/master` to see what the branch is at,
and compare that to the last known commit.  If its changed, then
suggest the user do a fetch.

I do this in repo, only I run `git fetch` once per day for the
end-user.  That way the objects are local, and I can use a local
check to see if there are updates that need to be pulled into the
executable working directory.

-- 
Shawn.