Re: How to maintain private/secret/confidential branch.

From: Łukasz Lew <lukasz.lew@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 14, 2008, 16:48 UTC
Message-ID: <c55009e70812140848j79202b0aqc6ffbfecfff50757@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20081214160645.GA21358@myhost>

Hi Alexander,

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 17:06, Alexander Potashev <aspotashev@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 34 quoted lines

> Hello, Łukasz!
>
> On 16:38 Sun 14 Dec     , Łukasz Lew wrote:
>> Thanks Nick, thats really helpful (and surprisingly simple).
>> I have a couple more questions:
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 15:55, Nick Andrew <nick@nick-andrew.net> wrote:
>> > On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:49:50PM +0100, Łukasz Lew wrote:
>> >> I don't know how to make such a scenario work:
>> >> - two repositories: pub, priv
>> >> - priv is clone/branch of pub
>> >> - there is some constant developement both in pub and priv
>> >> - there are regular syncs with pub in priv
>> >>
>> >> Problem:
>> >> Occasionally I want to push some changes from priv to pub.
>> >> Then after syncing with pub I want to get as few conflicts as possible.
>> >>
>> >> Is it possible to do with git?
>> >
>> > Git can do almost anything. One should instead ask "How to do this
>> > with git?" :-)
>>
>> So I've heard, but not yet experienced it myself. I'm thrilled to try.
>>
>> >
>> > If I understand your problem, you could solve it with git cherry-pick
>> > and rebase. On priv, make a for-public branch from a pub branch. Then
>> > cherry-pick the commits you want from your private branch into the
>> > for-public branch.
>>
>> That almost works. Can I somehow split existing commits just like in git-add -p?
> It's, however, better to make more commits to not experience the need of
> commit splitting.

Indeed good advice and best practice, but another best practice is to not commit not compiling state. My common scenario is that I code a big change in priv repository, and after that I find that some of its parts can and should be moved to pub.

Show 9 quoted lines

>
> But you can use '--no-commit' option of 'git cherry-pick' and 'git merge'
> (and 'git pull' as well as 'git merge'). For example:
>
>        git cherry-pick --no-commit <sha1>    # cherry-pick without commiting
>        git reset --                          # unstage all changes
>        git add -p                            # patch update
>
> You can also use 'git add -i' (interative mode) instead of 'git add -p'.

That's a possible solution indeed. Now I see that the right "plumbing" I need is splitting a commit into smaller parts and merging several commits into a larger one.

I think that would be nice functionality.

Do you know any tool that would allow such a manipulation on commits in history?

Thanks Lukasz

Show 20 quoted lines

>
>>
>> > Push your for-public branch to pub,
>> > then rebase your private branch.
>>
>> Rebase to the tip of master? Is it needed? Ie. cherry-pick does not
>> remove the patch from
>> the master in priv.
>>
>> If I now pull from pub, I will get the same change and it mereges nicely :D
>>
>> Can I get away without creating for_pub branch? maybe cherry pick in
>> pub from priv somehow?
>>
>> >
>> > Nick.
>> >
>
>                                        Alexander
>