Re: git log of remote repositories.

On 14/04/10 15:08, Aghiles wrote:

Major restriction? Have you understood how git works, internally? The first thing you'd have to do is to get the data (i.e. your version or their version) on one of the sides then do the diff there. Now, that either means you have to upload your non-matching objects or they have to upload their non-matching objects. Next up, you might not even have the authority (or technical possibility) to put data on that server (think http), so obviously the diff will have to be done at your side.

So, what will be transmitted? Data the server already has but you don't. git determines this data and then packs it into an efficient format and sends it to you. Which is what? A diff of your version vs. theirs. Except we don't transmit plain diffs but pack them up nicely so the data is smaller and (because you now effectively fetched it) can be reused any time after that initial diff.

If you're worried you might be downloading GBs of data in the process you can always interrupt a running fetch.

Now, one might think of some very limited form of log. Like "git remote-log master..master@origin" (syntax made up). This would be something which could only be used with smart protocols and would display a log (which you couldn't trust because you can't verify the integrity and still has not much metadata). And it would be a heap of new functionality to implement for something that doesn't fit into the workflow of a git user. For the user it would probably take the same amount of time as simply fetching everything new in most cases.

Or you can use SVN and have real online-diffs with real speed ;)

Greetings, Jojo