Re: Apply git bundle to source tree?

> Andreas Grünbacher <andreas.gruenbacher@gmail.com> writes:
> > I'm wondering if there's a way to apply a particular head in a bundle
> > to a source tree, for example:
> >
> >   $ git bundle create v5.9-rc1.bundle v5.8..v5.9-rc1
> >   $ cd linux-5.8
> >   $ git bundle APPLY ../5.9-rc1.bundle v5.9-rc1
> >
> > That would allow to reconstruct either the original repository or just
> > the underlying source tree, so the bundle could be used as a kind of
> > super diff.
>
> There seem to be a bit of misconception.
>
> Do not think that a bundle is like a patch.  When you created the
> bundle in the above example, you did not create a "super diff"
> between v5.8 and v5.9-rc1 that you can apply to a working tree files
> that correspond to v5.8 release.  That is not what you did.
>
> What you created is an equivalent of a (shallow) repository, that
> contains everything needed to get v5.9-rc1 by those who have a Git
> repository that has v5.8 to fetch/pull from.  It is OK to have more,
> but you MUST have v5.8 for the bundle in the example to be usable.
>
> So assuming that your 'linux-5.8' is not just a tarball extract but
> a Linux repository with v5.8 tag in it (i.e. "git log v5.8" gives
> you sensible output) then the command to use is not apply but fetch,
> e.g.
>
>     $ git bundle fetch ../5.9-rc1.bundle v5.9-rc1
>
> which will give you v5.9-rc1 tag.  What you can fetch from the bundle
> can be listed by using the list-heads subcommand on the bundle.
>
> And starting from that point, you would be able to do things like
>
>     $ git checkout -b my-fork-of-5.9-rc1 v5.9-rc1

> Now, assuming that your original question indeed came from thinking
> of a bundle like a patch and not like a repository, we have a
> question for you.  What in
>
>     $ git bundle --help
>
> gave such an incorrect impression? The documentation must be at
> fault here, and we need to clarify so that future readers of it will
> not be confused into the same misconception.