git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

[RFC] Zit (v2): the git-based single file content tracker

From
Giuseppe Bilotta <giuseppe.bilotta@gmail.com>
Date
Oct 23, 2008, 17:22 UTC
Message-ID
<gdqbta$rhe$1@ger.gmane.org>
In-Reply-To
<gdok16$vh2$1@ger.gmane.org>
I decided to give the simpler GIT_DIR approach another go.

The reworked Zit ( git://git.oblomov.eu/zit ) works by creating .file.git/ to track file's history. .file.git/info/excludes is initialized to the very strong '*' pattern to ensure that things such as git status etc only consider the actually tracked file.

The obvious advantage over the previous implementation is that we don't rely on fragile and non-portable hardlinks. The disadvantage is that something really bad can happen if a command fails to obey GIT_DIR or GIT_WORK_TREE correctly.

Command delegation is made a little smarter:
zit somecommand file [args...]
gets delegated to
git somecommand [args...]

with GIT_DIR=.file.git and GIT_WORK_TREE="`pwd`", which works surprisingly well. To prevent stupid expressions such as zit add file file or zit commit file file, add and commit put the filename back at the end of the parameter list.

Commands that seem to work correctly so far are init, add, log, status, diff, remote, push, pull, and even rebase -i.

Commands that definitely need some work are rm (should it just remove the .file.git/ dir?) and mv (hairy: we would need to rename .file.git to .newname.git too, but rollbacks are likely to break things).

The only new command introduced by zit is zit list, which lists all zit-tracked files in the current directory, currently in a very braindead way (e.g. I'd like it to display the proper status, such as C M or whatever; suggestions welcome).

On the TODO list is also some smart way to guess which file we're talking about when no file is specified. Basically, the idea is to check if there's only one tracked file, or only one changed tracked file, and allow a missing file option in that case.

As usual, comments suggestions and critiques welcome.
-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
Previous: Giuseppe BilottaNext: david@lang.hm
Message 11 of 38 in “[RFC] Zit: the git-based single file content tracker”
  1. Giuseppe BilottaOct 23, 2008
  2. Felipe Oliveira CarvalhoOct 23, 2008
  3. Nguyen Thai Ngoc DuyOct 23, 2008
  4. Giuseppe BilottaOct 23, 2008
  5. Nguyen Thai Ngoc DuyOct 23, 2008
  6. Giuseppe BilottaOct 23, 2008
  7. Johannes SixtOct 23, 2008
  8. Giuseppe BilottaOct 23, 2008
  9. Johannes SchindelinOct 24, 2008
  10. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  11. [RFC] Zit (v2): the git-based single file content trackerGiuseppe Bilotta, Oct 23, 2008
  12. david@lang.hmOct 24, 2008
  13. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  14. Jakub NarebskiOct 24, 2008
  15. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  16. Jakub NarebskiOct 26, 2008
  17. Giuseppe BilottaOct 26, 2008
  18. Jakub NarebskiOct 26, 2008
  19. Giuseppe BilottaOct 26, 2008
  20. Jean-Luc HerrenOct 23, 2008
  21. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  22. Jakub NarebskiOct 24, 2008
  23. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  24. Jakub NarebskiOct 24, 2008
  25. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  26. Junio C HamanoOct 24, 2008
  27. david@lang.hmOct 24, 2008
  28. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  29. david@lang.hmOct 24, 2008
  30. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  31. david@lang.hmOct 24, 2008
  32. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008
  33. Jakub NarebskiOct 24, 2008
  34. Giuseppe BilottaOct 25, 2008
  35. Jakub NarebskiOct 25, 2008
  36. Giuseppe BilottaOct 25, 2008
  37. david@lang.hmOct 24, 2008
  38. Giuseppe BilottaOct 24, 2008

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.