# [FILE] GNU BIT 6 messages from 2005-04-25 to 2005-04-25. Participants: Andreas Gal, Daniel Barkalow, Petr Baudis. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/304 ## Andreas Gal, 2005-04-25 06:24 Subject: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.58.0504242308460.6454%40sam.ics.uci.edu ``` BIT - a little bit like SCM BIT is a training exercise in shell programming and is the result of my attempts to wrap my head around GIT's inner working. BIT's command line interface should be very familiar to anyone who worked with other(tm) SCM tools before. I try to not depend on custom GIT features. BIT uses the off-the-shelf GIT core tools distributed by Linus. This means that BIT has about 2% of the features of Cogito. Also, it has about 0.1% of the user base of Cogito, so its probably very broken and I really don't recommend using it. You can obtain BIT from the following GIT repository: http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit You can use the GIT core utilities to pull and check-out BIT: init-db curl http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit/HEAD > .git/HEAD http-pull -a `cat .git/HEAD` \ http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit read-tree `cat .git/HEAD` checkout-cache -f -a Naturally, you can also use BIT to pull the current sources, which is much simpler: bit clone http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit This will create a directory "bit", pull the latest sources and perform a check-out for you. INSTALLATION Put "bit" anywhere in your search path. Its only a single bash script. It requires a link "bit-resolve" to itself and the (soft) link should reside in the same directory as "bit" itself. "bit" acts as merge script when invoked through that link. At this point, BIT's functionality is minimal. It does what I need it for. I will obviously add more commands as we go along, but I won't touch things like tags and stuff like that until Linus' makes up his mind how to do it *RIGHT*. BASIC CONCEPTS - BIT always checks out all files in your repository and it does so automatically. In other words, there is no "bit co" command. Not everyone will like this, but I do. - You can't seek around in a repository. Checked-out files always match the HEAD revision. You can diff files against older versions, but if you want to check out an older version, you will have to clone the repository (see below). TRACKING SOMEONE ELSE'S TREE $ bit clone http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ (Note: Don't forget the '/' at the end, otherwise http-pull won't work.) This command pulls Linus' latest GIT tree to a local repository "git.git". You can change the latter by giving clone an additional argument. $ bit clone http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ \ git-trunk Once you have a copy of the remote repository, you can check whether there are new changesets in the remote repository that you haven't seen yet: $ bit changes -R \ http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ If you see any changes, you can merge them into your own tree: $ bit pull http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ BRANCHING Now lets assume you want to work on an extension to GIT. For this, we will clone the repository: $ bit clone git-trunk git-bit This will create a copy of the git-trunk repository and name it "git-bit". The object directory is shared (using a soft link), which has the nice benefit that once you run "bit pull" on one of the repositories, the other one will be able to merge changes without any network traffic (except for reading the current HEAD). Lets say we make some changes to sha1_file.c and want to commit it to our local repository "git-bit": ... edit sha1_file.c ... In case we already forgot what file we edited, "bit pending" will tells us: $ bit pending sha1_file.c Just in case we still can remember what we changed, there is "bit diffs", which shows a diff to the current HEAD or any other version of our tree. $ bit diffs --- 28ad1598e54200ca8ee1261ed7beb4e31e20b2f1/sha1_file.c +++ sha1_file.c @@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ int i; static char *name, *base; + /* added a cool new feature here */ if (!base) { char *sha1_file_directory = getenv(DB_ENVIRONMENT) ? : ... int len = strlen(sha1_file_directory); To commit our changes, we use "bit commit". It will fire up "vi" to ask for a commit message. $ bit commit ... enter commit message in vi ... MERGING Lets assume Linus' put out a new version of GIT, so we want to update both of our repositories. First lets do this for "git-trunk". $ cd bit-trunk $ bit pull http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ (Note: You have to specify the URL explicitly every time because there is no consensus yet where to store this information. Once thats sorted out, this will be automatic, of course.) As this repository only tracks Linus' sources, there should be no conflicts. Now lets go to our "git-bit" repository and do the same there: $ cd git-bit $ bit pull http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ Because both repositories share the object directory, you will get away with minimal network traffic. Conflicts are resolved using RCS merge. If that fails, you have to edit the offending files yourself. PUSHING PATCHES UPSTREAM Lets assume we want to send our improvements to Linus. For this, we can ask changes to show us all local changes in our repository: $ bit changes -L \ http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torvalds/git.git/ There is currently no mechanism in BIT to generate patches automatically, but I will add one shortly. What is working already is that you can push your repository to a remote location: $ bit push ssh://gal@sam.ics.uci.edu/.nfs/public_html/public/git/ This will update the remote repository via SSH and set HEAD to point to your latest version. Please note that you have to create a repository at the remote location using "init-db". HELP Try "bit --help" to get some simple instructions how to use BIT. All commands have builtin help as well. Try "bit commit --help". Not all options are always implemented. Feel free to send me a patch. ``` ## Daniel Barkalow, 2005-04-25 15:37 Subject: Re: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.21.0504251134090.30848-100000%40iabervon.org In-Reply-To: ``` On Sun, 24 Apr 2005, Andreas Gal wrote: > http-pull -a `cat .git/HEAD` \ > http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit Don't forget the slash at the end... (one of us should probably fix that at some point; just stick a slash at the end of any URL without one) Also, it has become customary to have URLs like .../public/bit.git/, since the contents match a .git directory. -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank* ``` ## Andreas Gal, 2005-04-25 20:03 Subject: Re: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.58.0504251257460.10788%40sam.ics.uci.edu In-Reply-To: ``` I fixed this bug and another nasty one in "bit pull". The new version is up in its usual place: bit clone http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit (You can't use pull because it was broken in the previous version.) Another unrelated note: to add files to your repository, do "bit commit filename". To remove a file, delete it and then do "bit commit deleted-filename" (yes, I will add "bit add" and "bit rm" at some point). Andreas On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Daniel Barkalow wrote: > On Sun, 24 Apr 2005, Andreas Gal wrote: > > > http-pull -a `cat .git/HEAD` \ > > http://nil.ics.uci.edu/~gal/public/bit > > Don't forget the slash at the end... (one of us should probably fix that > at some point; just stick a slash at the end of any URL without one) > > Also, it has become customary to have URLs like .../public/bit.git/, since > the contents match a .git directory. > > -Daniel > *This .sig left intentionally blank* > > - > 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 > ``` ## Petr Baudis, 2005-04-25 20:52 Subject: Re: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: <20050425205226.GG13467@pasky.ji.cz> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050425205226.GG13467%40pasky.ji.cz In-Reply-To: ``` Dear diary, on Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 08:24:24AM CEST, I got a letter where Andreas Gal told me that... > HELP > > Try "bit --help" to get some simple instructions how to use BIT. All > commands have builtin help as well. Try "bit commit --help". Not all > options are always implemented. Feel free to send me a patch. Do you intend to licence it as free software? Also, you call it "GNU BIT". Does that mean it is part of the GNU project? -- Petr "Pasky" Baudis Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/ C++: an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog. -- Steve Taylor ``` ## Andreas Gal, 2005-04-25 21:33 Subject: Re: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.58.0504251430380.11722%40sam.ics.uci.edu In-Reply-To: <20050425205226.GG13467@pasky.ji.cz> ``` bit contains various pieces and snippets from Linus' and your scripts and thus automatically falls under GPL. Maybe I should have stated that somewhere explicitly, but its a 800 lines bash script for crying out loud. The "GNU" part was actually more like a joke. If you feel offended by it, I am happy to remove it. Are there any trademark issues involved in using "GNU"? Andreas PS: Unrelated note. There is a GNU GIT project (some graphical file manager thing or so). On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Petr Baudis wrote: > Dear diary, on Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 08:24:24AM CEST, I got a letter > where Andreas Gal told me that... > > HELP > > > > Try "bit --help" to get some simple instructions how to use BIT. All > > commands have builtin help as well. Try "bit commit --help". Not all > > options are always implemented. Feel free to send me a patch. > > Do you intend to licence it as free software? Also, you call it "GNU > BIT". Does that mean it is part of the GNU project? > > -- > Petr "Pasky" Baudis > Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/ > C++: an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog. -- Steve Taylor > ``` ## Petr Baudis, 2005-04-25 21:46 Subject: Re: [FILE] GNU BIT Message-ID: <20050425214617.GH13467@pasky.ji.cz> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050425214617.GH13467%40pasky.ji.cz In-Reply-To: ``` Dear diary, on Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 11:33:12PM CEST, I got a letter where Andreas Gal told me that... > bit contains various pieces and snippets from Linus' and your scripts and > thus automatically falls under GPL. Maybe I should have stated that > somewhere explicitly, but its a 800 lines bash script for crying out loud. I skimmed over it briefly and admitelly didn't find anything *obviously* borrowed from my scripts, so I wanted to ask. It is worth noting explicitly, I think. > The "GNU" part was actually more like a joke. If you feel offended by it, > I am happy to remove it. Are there any trademark issues involved in using > "GNU"? I was not offended, just confused. :-) I think it's better not to use "GNU" in the name if it's not part of the GNU project. -- Petr "Pasky" Baudis Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/ C++: an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog. -- Steve Taylor ```