Re: tags and patches

> On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 11:35:35AM +0930, Geoff Russell wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to work out if I want to use git to manage a software
> > distribution problem. I distribute release v1.0 to people then later I
> > want to email them a patch to take them from v1.0 to v1.1.  I can
> > probably live without the tags, but am just surprised that patches
> > don't send them.
>
> Patches represent differences in _content_, but they don't show history.
> So while git supports a somewhat extended patch format (supporting
> things like renames and file modes), patches don't know anything about
> branches, parent commits, or tags.
>
> If you are trying to take people from v1.0 to v1.1, the best way depends
> on their setup:
>
>   - If they are all running git, then you can have them 'pull' from your
>     repository
>   - If you don't like that for some reason, you can send them a bundle,
>     which is the moral equivalent of pulling (except that you've pushed
>     through a non-interactive medium, but the end result in their
>     repository is the same)
>   - If they aren't running git, then you can use git to prepare the
>     patch by tagging your own repository, and then creating either a
>     patch series (git-format-patch v1.0..v1.1) or a single big patch
>     (git-diff v1.0..v1.1). But either way, what would it mean to have a
>     tag in the patch, since they don't have a tagging system at the
>     other end?
>
> I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish; if you can be more
> concrete, we might be able to offer more concrete solutions (or maybe
> the answer you were looking for was simply, "you want bundles, not
> patches").