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Re: branch description

From
Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date
Apr 19, 2008, 21:05 UTC
Message-ID
<200804192305.36780.jnareb@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<200804191118.50105.johan@herland.net>
On Sat, 19 April 2008, Johan Herland wrote:
> On Friday 18 April 2008, Jakub Narebski wrote:
>> Let me sum up here proposals where to put branch description:
[...]
Show 9 quoted lines
>> 3. Put them in GIT_DIR/info/refs_description, in some format.  It makes
>>    it very easy to add support for propagation for dumb transports.
>>    Native transport probably would need some extension.  Should not
>>    interfere with the rest of git code.
>> 4. Store description after sha1 in the ref file itself.  Automatic
>>    propagation for dumb transport (whether we want it or not).  Native
>>    transport as above.  Very high probabily of interfering with the rest
>>    of code, especially shell part of Git.  Need to find a place for
>>    descriptions in pack-refs.
[...]
Show 9 quoted lines
>> 
>> I think that the best proposal is (3), not (4) as you say.
> 
> The problem with (3) vs. (4) is that in (3) we must make sure that whenever
> a branch is moved/renamed (e.g. "git clone", "git branch -m", probably more
> as well), the corresponding description is moved/renamed as well. This is
> elegantly solved in (4). But as you say, (4) may have implementation
> difficulties of its own. I guess the first acceptable implementation will
> win.

First, git already has move corresponding reflog and per-branch configuration when renaming a branch, so it is nothing new for (3).

Second, implementation difficulties of (4) might be made stronger by the fact that repository with branches with descriptions should be fetchable and clonable using both native and dumb protocols by older versions of git, and shouldn't cause troubles after fetching. (Assume that git is new enough to understand packed refs). Backward compatibility might kill this solution; but it might not.

BTW. I have added line with description to loose ref, and a few commands I tried didn't return (cause) any errors... so...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
Previous: Johan HerlandNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 20 of 23 in “branch description”
  1. Stephen SinclairApr 15, 2008
  2. Russ DillApr 15, 2008
  3. Brian GernhardtApr 15, 2008
  4. Junio C HamanoApr 15, 2008
  5. Jeff KingApr 15, 2008
  6. Jeff KingApr 15, 2008
  7. Junio C HamanoApr 15, 2008
  8. Stephen SinclairApr 15, 2008
  9. Brian GernhardtApr 15, 2008
  10. Jakub NarebskiApr 16, 2008
  11. Jeff KingApr 16, 2008
  12. Stephen SinclairApr 16, 2008
  13. Mike HommeyApr 16, 2008
  14. Matt GrahamApr 16, 2008
  15. Johan HerlandApr 16, 2008
  16. Jakub NarebskiApr 18, 2008
  17. Johan HerlandApr 19, 2008
  18. Junio C HamanoApr 19, 2008
  19. Johan HerlandApr 19, 2008
  20. Jakub NarebskiApr 19, 2008
  21. Junio C HamanoApr 16, 2008
  22. Jakub NarebskiApr 16, 2008
  23. Jakub NarebskiApr 15, 2008

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