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Re: suggestion? only pull cleanly applying commits

From
Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
Date
Nov 26, 2008, 13:30 UTC
Message-ID
<492D4F8E.10002@op5.se>
In-Reply-To
<492D37A2.4010500@googlemail.com>
Maximilian Mehnert wrote:
Show 32 quoted lines
> Hi!
> 
> I've a scenario where I don't really want to do a full merge but rather
> to pull all commits from another repository that merge without conflicts.
> 
> I've put together the script at the bottom which seems to work ok but is
> damn slow.
> 
> Is there a smarter and faster way to do this that I missed reading the
> documentation?
> 
> Any help would be really appreciated! :-)
> 
> Regards,
> Maximilian
> 
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> 
> for commit in `git rev-list --reverse HEAD..other-repository/master`; do
>         git diff-tree -p $commit|patch --dry-run -p1 -N -f >/dev/null
>         if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
>                 echo "getting $commit"
>                 parents=`git rev-list --parents -n1  $commit|wc -w`
>                 if [ $parents -eq 2 ]; then
>                         git cherry-pick $commit
>                 else
>                         git cherry-pick -m1 $commit
>                 fi
>         fi
> done
> 

The fact that you're cherry-picking the commits means you create new ones, constantly. It's very, very, very bad practice to do from a script with commits you're getting from somewhere else. Git can (and will) handle it properly come merge-day, but your history will be a stinking pile of horse-manure if you keep it up for very long.

There are more important questions, however.
1. Why do you have to merge so often? Merging is something that should
   not be undertaken lightly, and you shouldn't do it "just to stay up
   to date".
2. Why can't you just merge (resolving conflicts as they appear) when
   you're done with what you're working on?

Remember that "conflict-free" means totally different things depending on which way you're looking at it. Upstream could rename a function that you're using, and it would merge without *textual* conflicts, but your stuff would be totally broken afterwards. Such design-scope conflicts can only be protected from with testing. Git will not handle them for you.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231
Previous: Maximilian Mehnert
Message 2 of 2 in “suggestion? only pull cleanly applying commits”
  1. Maximilian MehnertNov 26, 2008
  2. Andreas EricssonNov 26, 2008

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