Re: [RFC] git pull and importers

[Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>]

Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> wrote:
> There's an SVN project I'm trying to track with git-svn. "git svn fetch" 
> fetches and imports the commits perfectly, but I can't figure out a way to 
> merge upstream commits into my branch automatically.

I don't suggest using merge with git-svn since it can generate
non-linear history.  Non-linear history does not map well to SVN.

"git svn rebase" (in 1.5.1) is handy for getting upstream commits into
your branch (it's a wrapper around "git rebase")

> It seems like the right solution should be:
> 
> [remote "origin"]
> 	importer = svn
> 	url = svn://ixion.tartarus.org/main
> 	fetch = puzzles:refs/remotes/puzzles
> [branch "master"]
> 	remote = origin
> 	merge = puzzles

git-svn in 1.5.1 already allows you to define:

[svn-remote "svn"]
	url = svn://ixion.tartarus.org/main
	fetch = puzzles:refs/remotes/puzzles

And then "git svn rebase" should automatically be able to figure out to
rebase against refs/remotes/puzzles without needing a [branch "master"]
section.

I don't think having the "importer = svn" in [remote "..."] is a good
idea since it would be incompatible with older versions of git and the
documentation would confuse users who don't track the latest version.

> Which would mean that it would use "git svn fetch" instead of "git fetch" 
> for that remote, and "git svn fetch" would use that config section instead 
> of its current config section.

Here's what I'd like git-fetch to do someday[1]:

When git-fetch is called without any remote arguments, it would look for
[remote "origin"] as it does now.  However, if no [remote "..."]
sections are found (as is common with importer-created repos), it would
try other importers: [svn-remote "svn"], (and hopefully one day
[cvs-remote "cvs"], [arch-remote "arch"], ...).

Of course, git-fetch would also be able to handle --svn (and later
--cvs/--arch/...) flags if the [*remote "..."] section names are
ambiguous.

I intentionally named the default svn-remote section "svn" instead of
"origin" for this reason, too; I didn't want to confuse git-fetch.

[1] - patches would be very much welcome (*nudge*nudge*wink*wink),
      I have a lot on my plate and this isn't a high priority.

-- 
Eric Wong