# git equivalent to clearcase wink-in

7 messages from 2010-01-20 to 2010-01-21. Participants: Richard Assal, Jamie Wellnitz, Mike Hommey, Robin Rosenberg, Sverre Rabbelier, Johan Herland, Matthieu Moy.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/22309

## Richard Assal, 2010-01-20 20:20

Subject: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <810256.84037.qm@web45111.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/810256.84037.qm%40web45111.mail.sp1.yahoo.com

```
To whom it may concer,

I have been playing with git recently, and I like it very much.  I was wondering if you can tell me if git has something that is equivalent to clearcase wink-in functionality.  The reason I ask, if it takes 1 hour to build my repository, then every clone of my repository will also take one hour to build at the remote location.  In clearcase you can wink in objects that have already been built.  time to wink in could just be minutes rather than waiting a full hour for all the binaries to build.

Can you help me out here?  I would like to know if git has something similar.

Richard.


      

```

## Jamie Wellnitz, 2010-01-20 21:05

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <7938b46a1001201305j499e05bg2654d634d7b26d76@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7938b46a1001201305j499e05bg2654d634d7b26d76%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <810256.84037.qm@web45111.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

```
Would something like ccache (compiler cache) help you out?  It's not
the same as wink-in (which, as I understand it, copies an already
built object file from someone else who has built it).  Instead each
user has their own cache, so everyone has to pay the expensive build
price at least once.

It also only works for C/C++, I think.

-- Jamie

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Richard Assal <richard_assal@yahoo.com> wrote:
> To whom it may concer,
>
> I have been playing with git recently, and I like it very much.  I was wondering if you can tell me if git has something that is equivalent to clearcase wink-in functionality.  The reason I ask, if it takes 1 hour to build my repository, then every clone of my repository will also take one hour to build at the remote location.  In clearcase you can wink in objects that have already been built.  time to wink in could just be minutes rather than waiting a full hour for all the binaries to build.
>
> Can you help me out here?  I would like to know if git has something similar.
>
> Richard.
>
>
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>

```

## Mike Hommey, 2010-01-20 21:12

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <20100120211251.GA26274@glandium.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20100120211251.GA26274%40glandium.org
In-Reply-To: <7938b46a1001201305j499e05bg2654d634d7b26d76@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 04:05:46PM -0500, Jamie Wellnitz wrote:
> Would something like ccache (compiler cache) help you out?  It's not
> the same as wink-in (which, as I understand it, copies an already
> built object file from someone else who has built it).  Instead each
> user has their own cache, so everyone has to pay the expensive build
> price at least once.

Surely the ccache directory could be shared on nfs or some other network
filesystem. Or object file could be checked in, which is imho ugly, but
should work (better to do that on a separate branch)

Mike

```

## Robin Rosenberg, 2010-01-20 21:24

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <201001202224.47747.robin.rosenberg@dewire.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/201001202224.47747.robin.rosenberg%40dewire.com
In-Reply-To: <7938b46a1001201305j499e05bg2654d634d7b26d76@mail.gmail.com>

```
onsdagen den 20 januari 2010 22.05.46 skrev  Jamie Wellnitz:
> Would something like ccache (compiler cache) help you out?  It's not
> the same as wink-in (which, as I understand it, copies an already
> built object file from someone else who has built it).  Instead each
> user has their own cache, so everyone has to pay the expensive build
> price at least once.
> 
> It also only works for C/C++, I think.

Judging from the documentation you can share the cache with others.

-- robin

```

## Sverre Rabbelier, 2010-01-20 22:34

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <fabb9a1e1001201434n1036253ds1120c2abc0d3728e@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/fabb9a1e1001201434n1036253ds1120c2abc0d3728e%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <20100120211251.GA26274@glandium.org>

```
Heya,

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 22:12, Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org> wrote:
> Surely the ccache directory could be shared on nfs or some other network
> filesystem. Or object file could be checked in, which is imho ugly, but
> should work (better to do that on a separate branch)

Ha! It could even be stored as a note on the tree object? The whole
notes business seems to be nearing a usable stage. Or maybe notes are
text-only, mhhh. Johan?

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

```

## Johan Herland, 2010-01-21 01:51

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <201001210251.24948.johan@herland.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/201001210251.24948.johan%40herland.net
In-Reply-To: <fabb9a1e1001201434n1036253ds1120c2abc0d3728e@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Wednesday 20 January 2010, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 22:12, Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org> wrote:
> > Surely the ccache directory could be shared on nfs or some other
> > network filesystem. Or object file could be checked in, which is imho
> > ugly, but should work (better to do that on a separate branch)
> 
> Ha! It could even be stored as a note on the tree object? The whole
> notes business seems to be nearing a usable stage. Or maybe notes are
> text-only, mhhh. Johan?

In principle you could (ab)use the notes structure for this purpose. There 
is nothing inherently text-only about notes. I would certainly suggest to 
create a custom notes ref for this purpose, so that these object caches are 
not mixed up with other notes (and are also not displayed by git log).

I'm also not sure the putting the note on the tree object is the right 
granularity. You could imagine putting a .o-file as a note on the 
corresponding .c-file _blob_, but that would only work if the .o-file 
depended solely on the .c file (i.e. it would only work for preprocessed 
source, or .c-files without any #includes), so that is probably not viable.

The problem with putting the object cache on the tree object, is that it 
would only be useful for those building the exact same tree as the one where 
the cache was made. Even though ccache can handle changed files just fine, 
you would not be able to leverage it, since the cache would be hidden under 
a different tree object.


Here's is an even more extreme idea: AFAIK, ccache works by hashing a 
preprocessed source file, and mapping the hash value to the resulting object 
file. A later lookup of the same preprocessed source file will yield the 
object file without having to go through that pesky compilation.

Now, what if that hash function happened to be SHA1, and the mapping 
happened to be the Git object database? In other words you could create a 
notes tree where the keys are SHA1s from preprocessed source files, and the 
note objects are the corresponding object files. As long as you don't call 
gc_notes() on this notes tree, it doesn't really matter that your SHA1 keys 
do not really exist as objects in the Git repo. The notes code can happily 
map any arbitrary SHA1 sum to a note object; it's only in gc_notes() that we 
actually care whether that SHA1 identifies an existing Git object.


Oh, and BTW, I consider the notes feature to be ready for prime time once 
the patch series currently in 'pu' is fully merged.


Have fun! :)

...Johan

-- 
Johan Herland, <johan@herland.net>
www.herland.net

```

## Matthieu Moy, 2010-01-21 07:46

Subject: Re: git equivalent to clearcase wink-in
Message-ID: <vpqiqavgasy.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/vpqiqavgasy.fsf%40bauges.imag.fr
In-Reply-To: <20100120211251.GA26274@glandium.org>

```
Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org> writes:

> On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 04:05:46PM -0500, Jamie Wellnitz wrote:
>> Would something like ccache (compiler cache) help you out?  It's not
>> the same as wink-in (which, as I understand it, copies an already
>> built object file from someone else who has built it).  Instead each
>> user has their own cache, so everyone has to pay the expensive build
>> price at least once.
>
> Surely the ccache directory could be shared on nfs or some other network
> filesystem.

There's a section "SHARING A CACHE" here:
http://ccache.samba.org/ccache-man.html

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/

```
