git-subtree

git-subtree

[tqfx su]

git maintainers,
  Can you add a GPG signature option to git-subtree?
  I do hope you can take the above suggestions into consideration and
thanks in advance.

Re: git-subtree

[Fabian Stelzer]

On 14.11.2021 18:11, tqfx su wrote:
>git maintainers,
>  Can you add a GPG signature option to git-subtree?
>  I do hope you can take the above suggestions into consideration and
>thanks in advance.

Hi,
i suspect you'd like the squash & merge commits the subtree commands
create to be signed? If so you can try simply enabling commit.gpgsign in
your config before doing a subtree operation. This will cause all
commits to be signed. If this works as you expect we could make subtree
pass a "-s" flag for signing on to the commit calls.

git-subtree

[David Greene]

Hey all,

Avery Pennarun has suckered me into^W^W^Wasked me to submit his
git-subtree tool for inclusion into mainline.  Apparently there was some
discussion about this at GitTogether.

I have a patch ready.  It takes git-subtree from the current GitHub
master, fixes the tests to use the standard git test harness and updates
the build to recognize git-subtree.

How does the git community want the patch presented?  Right now it's one
monolithic thing.  I understand that isn't ideal but I don't think
incorporating the entire GitHub master history is necessarily the best
idea either.

So I'm looking for some guidance.

Thanks!

                            -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Hi David,

David Greene wrote:
> I have a patch ready.
> How does the git community want the patch presented?

Please read and follow the guidelines listed in
Documentation/SubmittingPatches.  The TL;DR version is: break it up
into logical reviewable commits based on the current `master` and use
git format-patch/ git send-email to send those commits to this mailing
list.

Cheers!

-- Ram

[1]: https://raw.github.com/git/git/master/Documentation/SubmittingPatches

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi David,
>
> David Greene wrote:
>> I have a patch ready.
>> How does the git community want the patch presented?
>
> Please read and follow the guidelines listed in
> Documentation/SubmittingPatches.  The TL;DR version is: break it up
> into logical reviewable commits based on the current `master` and use
> git format-patch/ git send-email to send those commits to this mailing
> list.

I've read that document.  The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
Avery did.  This is a completely new tool for git and I don't have the
first idea of what "logical" chunks would look like.  I assume, for
example, that we'd want the first "chunk" to actually work and do
something interesting.  I can go spend a bunch of time to see if I can
grok enough to create these chunks but I wanted to check first and make
sure that would be absolutely necessary.  It's a lot of time to learn a
completely new codebase.  I was hoping to submit something soon and then
learn the codebase gradually during maintenance/further development.

How have completely new tools be introduced into the git mainline in the
past?

Thanks!

                              -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Hi again,

[+CC: Junio Hamano, our maintainer]

David A. Greene wrote:
> I've read that document.  The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
> Avery did.

Not an issue as long as you have Avery's signoff.

> It's a lot of time to learn a
> completely new codebase.  I was hoping to submit something soon and then
> learn the codebase gradually during maintenance/further development.

We certainly don't want badly reviewed code that nobody understands
floating around in the codebase- so, I'd suggest sending out whatever
you think is appropriate for the first round of reviews, and see how
things shape up from there.

> How have completely new tools be introduced into the git mainline in the
> past?

Yes.  For an example of something I was involved with but didn't
author, see vcs-svn/.

-- Ram

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi again,
>
> [+CC: Junio Hamano, our maintainer]
>
> David A. Greene wrote:
>> I've read that document.  The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
>> Avery did.
>
> Not an issue as long as you have Avery's signoff.

As in a signed-off-by log entry on the commit?  I did a commit -s to add
my own signed-off-by tag and added a "From:" line in accordance with the
SubmittingPatches document:

  "If you are forwarding a patch from somebody else, optionally, at the
   beginning of the e-mail message just before the commit message starts,
   you can put a "From: " line to name that person."

I have not used signoffs before in my day-to-day git flow.  How do I go
about getting one from Avery and incorporating it into the history in an
autheticated way?  I'm assuming you don't want me to forge his sign-off.
:)

>> It's a lot of time to learn a
>> completely new codebase.  I was hoping to submit something soon and then
>> learn the codebase gradually during maintenance/further development.
>
> We certainly don't want badly reviewed code that nobody understands
> floating around in the codebase- 

Certainly, I'm not trying to avoid review, just trying to figure out the
most efficient mechanics.

> so, I'd suggest sending out whatever you think is appropriate for the
> first round of reviews, and see how things shape up from there.

Fair enough.  I think I will take Jeff's suggested route and see where
that goes.

>> How have completely new tools be introduced into the git mainline in the
>> past?
>
> Yes.  For an example of something I was involved with but didn't
> author, see vcs-svn/.

Ok, I'll look into that.  Thanks for the pointer.

                             -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

greened@obbligato.org (David A. Greene) writes:

> Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi again,
>>
>> [+CC: Junio Hamano, our maintainer]
>>
>> David A. Greene wrote:
>>> I've read that document.  The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
>>> Avery did.
>>
>> Not an issue as long as you have Avery's signoff.

Argh.  Sorry about all the duplicate replies.  I got delivery bounces on
all of them.  Must have been a stuck queue or something.  So again,
apologies for the noise.

                              -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi again,
>
> [+CC: Junio Hamano, our maintainer]
>
> David A. Greene wrote:
>> I've read that document. The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
>> Avery did.
>
> Not an issue as long as you have Avery's signoff.

As in a signed-off-by log entry on the commit?  I did a commit -s to add
my own signed-off-by tag and added a "From:" line in accordance with the
SubmittingPatches document:

  "If you are forwarding a patch from somebody else, optionally, at the
   beginning of the e-mail message just before the commit message starts,
   you can put a "From: " line to name that person."

I have not used signoffs before in my day-to-day git flow.  How do I go
about getting one from Avery and incorporating it into the history in an
autheticated way?  I'm assuming you don't want me to forge his sign-off.
:)

>> It's a lot of time to learn a completely new codebase. I was hoping
>> to submit something soon and then learn the codebase gradually during
>> maintenance/further development.
>
> We certainly don't want badly reviewed code that nobody understands
> floating around in the codebase

Certainly, I'm not trying to avoid review, just trying to figure out the
most efficient mechanics.

> so, I'd suggest sending out whatever you think is appropriate for the
> first round of reviews, and see how things shape up from there.

Fair enough.  I think I will take Jeff's suggested route and see where
that goes.

>> How have completely new tools be introduced into the git mainline in the
>> past?
>
> Yes.  For an example of something I was involved with but didn't
> author, see vcs-svn/.

Ok, I'll look into that.  Thanks for the pointer.

                             -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 09:03:38AM -0600, David A. Greene wrote:

> > Please read and follow the guidelines listed in
> > Documentation/SubmittingPatches.  The TL;DR version is: break it up
> > into logical reviewable commits based on the current `master` and use
> > git format-patch/ git send-email to send those commits to this mailing
> > list.
> 
> I've read that document.  The issue is that I didn't develop the code,
> Avery did.  This is a completely new tool for git and I don't have the
> first idea of what "logical" chunks would look like.  I assume, for
> example, that we'd want the first "chunk" to actually work and do
> something interesting.  I can go spend a bunch of time to see if I can
> grok enough to create these chunks but I wanted to check first and make
> sure that would be absolutely necessary.  It's a lot of time to learn a
> completely new codebase.  I was hoping to submit something soon and then
> learn the codebase gradually during maintenance/further development.

I think this is also somewhat different in that git-subtree has a
multi-year history in git that we may want to keep. So it is more
analogous to something like gitweb or git-gui, which we have brought in
(using subtree merges, no less).

The biggest decision is whether or not to import the existing history.
If we do, then we have to decide whether it becomes a sub-component like
gitweb (e.g., it gets pulled into a "subtree" directory, and we have
make recurse into it), or whether it gets overlaid into the main
directory (i.e., we clean and munge the subtree repo a bit, then just
"git merge" the history in).

If we want to throw away the existing history, then I think you end up
doing the same munging as the latter option above, and then just make a
single patch out of it instead of a merge.

I don't use git-subtree, but just glancing over the repo, it looks like
that munging is mostly:

  1. git-subtree.sh stays, and gets added to git.git's top-level Makefile

  2. the test.sh script gets adapted into t/tXXXX-subtree.sh

  3. git-subtree.txt goes into Documentation/

  4. The rest of the files are infrastructure that can go away, as they
     are a subset of what git.git already contains.

I'd favor keeping the history and doing the munge-overlay thing.
Although part of me wants to join the histories in a subtree so that we
can use "git subtree" to do it (which would just be cool), I think the
resulting code layout doesn't make much sense unless git-subtree is
going to be maintained separately.

-Peff

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> I think this is also somewhat different in that git-subtree has a
> multi-year history in git that we may want to keep. So it is more

I agree there may be some value in preserving this history.

> The biggest decision is whether or not to import the existing history.

I agree.  I will leave that decision to the more experienced git
developers.  I'm happy to work either way.

> If we want to throw away the existing history, then I think you end up
> doing the same munging as the latter option above, and then just make a
> single patch out of it instead of a merge.

Right.  That's the approach I've taken for now but it's easy to switch.
There aren't that many changes.

> I don't use git-subtree, but just glancing over the repo, it looks like
> that munging is mostly:
>
>   1. git-subtree.sh stays, and gets added to git.git's top-level Makefile

Done.

>   2. the test.sh script gets adapted into t/tXXXX-subtree.sh

Done.

>   3. git-subtree.txt goes into Documentation/

Done.

>   4. The rest of the files are infrastructure that can go away, as they
>      are a subset of what git.git already contains.

Done.

I have a patch that does all of the above but it is one monolithic blob.
Like I said, the changes aren't extensive so it's easy for me to change
strategies.

> I'd favor keeping the history and doing the munge-overlay thing.

Ok, that sounds fine to me.  I'll do that in a private branch.  What
should I send as patches to the mailing list?  I'm assuming we don't
want [PATCH 235/12342], etc. sent to the list chronicling the entire
history.  :)

> Although part of me wants to join the histories in a subtree so that we
> can use "git subtree" to do it (which would just be cool),

Heh.  I thought about that too.  :)

> I think the resulting code layout doesn't make much sense unless
> git-subtree is going to be maintained separately.

Yeah, I agree.

                                -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

greened@obbligato.org (David A. Greene) writes:

>> I'd favor keeping the history and doing the munge-overlay thing.
>
> Ok, that sounds fine to me.  I'll do that in a private branch.  What
> should I send as patches to the mailing list?  I'm assuming we don't
> want [PATCH 235/12342], etc. sent to the list chronicling the entire
> history.  :)
>
>> Although part of me wants to join the histories in a subtree so that we
>> can use "git subtree" to do it (which would just be cool),
>
> Heh.  I thought about that too.  :)

I actually did end up doing a subtree merge via git subtree.  It was
more convenient to put it in contrib/ like that as almost everthing
there is in its own subdirectory.

I'm cleaning things up there to remove redundancy, rewrite tests (using
earlier work), etc.  What number should I use for git-subtree tests?
Here are some logical candidates:

        5 - the pull and exporting commands
        6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
        7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
        9 - the git tools

git-subtree can pull and export.  It also affects revision trees (it
merges, for example) and is a porcelainish command that affects the
working tree.  It is also a "git tool" of a sort.

I originally put them under t97XX but now that is taken, as is
everything up to and including t99XX.

Anyone have a strong opinion?

Thanks!

                           -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

greened@obbligato.org (David A. Greene) writes:

> I originally put them under t97XX but now that is taken, as is
> everything up to and including t99XX.

Oops, I lied.  I originally put them under t79XX and I've kept that for
now.  Sound good?

                             -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> I think this is also somewhat different in that git-subtree has a
> multi-year history in git that we may want to keep. So it is more

I agree there may be some value in preserving this history.

> The biggest decision is whether or not to import the existing history.

I agree.  I will leave that decision to the more experienced git
developers.  I'm happy to work either way.

> If we want to throw away the existing history, then I think you end up
> doing the same munging as the latter option above, and then just make a
> single patch out of it instead of a merge.

Right.  That's the approach I've taken for now but it's easy to switch.
There aren't that many changes.

> I don't use git-subtree, but just glancing over the repo, it looks like
> that munging is mostly:
>
>   1. git-subtree.sh stays, and gets added to git.git's top-level Makefile

Done.

>   2. the test.sh script gets adapted into t/tXXXX-subtree.sh

Done.

>   3. git-subtree.txt goes into Documentation/

Done.

>   4. The rest of the files are infrastructure that can go away, as they
>      are a subset of what git.git already contains.

Done.

I have a patch that does all of the above but it is one monolithic blob.
Like I said, the changes aren't extensive so it's easy for me to change
strategies.

> I'd favor keeping the history and doing the munge-overlay thing.

Ok, that sounds fine to me.  I'll do that in a private branch.  What
should I send as patches to the mailing list?  I'm assuming we don't
want [PATCH 235/12342], etc. sent to the list chronicling the entire
history.  :)

> Although part of me wants to join the histories in a subtree so that we
> can use "git subtree" to do it (which would just be cool),

Heh.  I thought about that too.  :)

> I think the resulting code layout doesn't make much sense unless
> git-subtree is going to be maintained separately.

Yeah, I agree.

                                -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[Junio C Hamano]

David Greene <dag@cray.com> writes:

> How does the git community want the patch presented?  Right now it's one
> monolithic thing.  I understand that isn't ideal but I don't think
> incorporating the entire GitHub master history is necessarily the best
> idea either.

It depends on the longer term vision of how the result of this submission
will evolve and more importantly, where you fit in the piture.

One possible answer you could give us might go like this:

    The longer term vision is for "git subtree" to become, and be
    developed further as, an integral part of the core git suite.

    I have been an active contributor to the "git subtree" project for
    quite some time, and am very familiar with the code. Avery has been
    too busy to properly take care of the maintenance of "git subtree",
    and expected to be so for the foreseeable future. I will address any
    issue raised during the initial review and will be taking over its
    maintenance and further development.

    My plan is to put this first to contrib/ area, keep it there for a few
    release cycles while ironing out remaining kinks in the code, and
    eventually make it one of the "git" subcommands. Avery's external tree
    will cease to exist as future development will happen in-tree in the
    git repository.

Your answer might differ, of course, but the point is that we would need
to weigh pros and cons between inclusion of it in the git repository and
keeping it in Avery's repository and have him and his contributors
maintain, enhance and distribute it from there, and it largely depends on
the nature of the submission. Is it a "throw it over the wall" dump of a
large code of unknown quality that we need to clean up first without
knowing the vision of how "git subtree" should evolve by original author
and/or people who have been actively developing it?

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> David Greene <dag@cray.com> writes:
>
>> How does the git community want the patch presented?  Right now it's one
>> monolithic thing.  I understand that isn't ideal but I don't think
>> incorporating the entire GitHub master history is necessarily the best
>> idea either.
>
> It depends on the longer term vision of how the result of this submission
> will evolve and more importantly, where you fit in the piture.

This is a very fair question.  I'll try to answer it as best I can.  I
think it mostly jibes with your suggested possible answer.

I've been using git-subtree for about six months now and as an
enthusiastic user who wants to introduce this too into my daily
corporate work environment, I'd like to see it incorporated as an
officially-supported git tool to make that introduction easier.

So my intention is to make git-subtree an integral part of the core git
suite and take on further maintenance and development along with Avery
and the other git-subtree developers.

I have not previously been a contributor to git-subtree and don't know
the code at all but I am a quick learner.  The actual git-subtree code
itself is not overwhelmingly large and strikes me as a tractable
learning project.

I approached Avery about submitting git-subtree to become part of the
core git suite.  He responded positively but indicated he does not have
the cycles to do it at this time.  He asked whether I could take on the
job and I agreed.

He mentioned that he'd talked to some developers at GitTogether and got
a positive reponse there.  I don't know whether you were part of those
discussions.  My impression is that the GitTogether discussions went
well and there was general agreement that git-subtree would be a
valuable addition to the core git suite.

I am perfectly happy to put this in contrib/ first if it eases the
introduction.  I would like to move it to the subcommand area after
getting everything in tip-top shape.  What I don't want is for it to
languish forever in contrib/.  That means I'll need some guideline of
the changes/standards necessary to qualify it for transition from
contrib/ to an official subcommand.  I expect we'll develop that as we
go along but I hope the git community has some institutional knowledge
gathered from previous experience.

I have asked Avery how he wants to do maintenance going forward.  I
haven't heard back from him yet so I can't speak to whether the existing
GitHub project will continue or not.  I'll pass along his thoughts when
I get them.

> Your answer might differ, of course, but the point is that we would need
> to weigh pros and cons between inclusion of it in the git repository and
> keeping it in Avery's repository and have him and his contributors
> maintain, enhance and distribute it from there, and it largely depends on
> the nature of the submission. Is it a "throw it over the wall" dump of a
> large code of unknown quality that we need to clean up first without
> knowing the vision of how "git subtree" should evolve by original author
> and/or people who have been actively developing it?

I certainly don't want this to be an "over the wall" operation.  I
intend to participate in maintenance of git-subtree in the official git
repository.

So I'll go ahead and work on adding this to contrib/.  Once I get a
response from Avery about his long-term vision I'll pass that along and
we can have further discussion.  I may start sending patches to the
mailing list for review before hearing back from him, however.

Sound good?

                             -Dave

Re: git-subtree

[David A. Greene]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> David Greene <dag@cray.com> writes:
>
>> How does the git community want the patch presented?  Right now it's one
>> monolithic thing.  I understand that isn't ideal but I don't think
>> incorporating the entire GitHub master history is necessarily the best
>> idea either.
>
> It depends on the longer term vision of how the result of this submission
> will evolve and more importantly, where you fit in the piture.

This is a very fair question.  I'll try to answer it as best I can.  I
think it mostly jibes with your suggested possible answer.

I've been using git-subtree for about six months now and as an
enthusiastic user who wants to introduce this too into my daily
corporate work environment, I'd like to see it incorporated as an
officially-supported git tool to make that introduction easier.

So my intention is to make git-subtree an integral part of the core git
suite and take on further maintenance and development along with Avery
and the other git-subtree developers.

I have not previously been a contributor to git-subtree and don't know
the code at all but I am a quick learner.  The actual git-subtree code
itself is not overwhelmingly large and strikes me as a tractable
learning project.

I approached Avery about submitting git-subtree to become part of the
core git suite.  He responded positively but indicated he does not have
the cycles to do it at this time.  He asked whether I could take on the
job and I agreed.

He mentioned that he'd talked to some developers at GitTogether and got
a positive reponse there.  I don't know whether you were part of those
discussions.  My impression is that the GitTogether discussions went
well and there was general agreement that git-subtree would be a
valuable addition to the core git suite.

I am perfectly happy to put this in contrib/ first if it eases the
introduction.  I would like to move it to the subcommand area after
getting everything in tip-top shape.  What I don't want is for it to
languish forever in contrib/.  That means I'll need some guideline of
the changes/standards necessary to qualify it for transition from
contrib/ to an official subcommand.  I expect we'll develop that as we
go along but I hope the git community has some institutional knowledge
gathered from previous experience.

I have asked Avery how he wants to do maintenance going forward.  I
haven't heard back from him yet so I can't speak to whether the existing
GitHub project will continue or not.  I'll pass along his thoughts when
I get them.

> Your answer might differ, of course, but the point is that we would need
> to weigh pros and cons between inclusion of it in the git repository and
> keeping it in Avery's repository and have him and his contributors
> maintain, enhance and distribute it from there, and it largely depends on
> the nature of the submission. Is it a "throw it over the wall" dump of a
> large code of unknown quality that we need to clean up first without
> knowing the vision of how "git subtree" should evolve by original author
> and/or people who have been actively developing it?

I certainly don't want this to be an "over the wall" operation.  I
intend to participate in maintenance of git-subtree in the official git
repository.

So I'll go ahead and work on adding this to contrib/.  Once I get a
response from Avery about his long-term vision I'll pass that along and
we can have further discussion.  I may start sending patches to the
mailing list for review before hearing back from him, however.

Sound good?

                             -Dave