threads / discuss / 32655

merge vs. rebase question

Subject: merge vs. rebase question

## tl;dr

3 messages between Jan 17, 2013 and Jan 18, 2013.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Dennis Putnam· Jan 17, 2013, 14:14 UTC · lore

As a git noob I am having trouble understanding when to use which commands. I have a repository (bare) on my Linux server. I also created a build directory as a local repository. In my build script I do a 'git pull' to make sure the build directory is up to date. No changes are made to my source so this repository never does an 'add' or 'commit'. When I run my script with 'pull', the output indicates that changes were found and seems to have pulled them into the local directory. However, when I look at the resulting source, none of the expected changes show up. I then tried a 'fetch' and 'rebase'. That worked but I don't understand why. I thought 'pull' did a 'fetch' and a 'merge' so I don't understand why a 'fetch' and 'rebase' worked but 'fetch' and 'merge' did not. Unless my understanding of what 'pull' does is wrong. In my case, what should I be using in my script to assure that the build directory is current?

Thanks.

Phil Hord· Jan 18, 2013, 18:38 UTC · re: Dennis Putnam · lore

Re: merge vs. rebase question

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Dennis Putnam <dap1@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> As a git noob I am having trouble understanding when to use which
> commands. I have a repository (bare) on my Linux server. I also created
> a build directory as a local repository. In my build script I do a 'git
> pull' to make sure the build directory is up to date. No changes are
> made to my source so this repository never does an 'add' or 'commit'.
> When I run my script with 'pull', the output indicates that changes were
> found and seems to have pulled them into the local directory. However,
> when I look at the resulting source, none of the expected changes show
> up. I then tried a 'fetch' and 'rebase'. That worked but I don't
> understand why. I thought 'pull' did a 'fetch' and a 'merge' so I don't
> understand why a 'fetch' and 'rebase' worked but 'fetch' and 'merge' did
> not. Unless my understanding of what 'pull' does is wrong. In my case,
> what should I be using in my script to assure that the build directory
> is current?

If your build directory never has any source changes or new commits, then pull is the right thing to do. You might want to use 'git pull --ff-only' to guarantee that your build directory is not creating merges unexpectedly.

You did not provide enough information to help figure out why your pull is failing to achieve the results you expect. I suggest you perform the pull manually in your build directory. If it fails, git should tell you why. If it reports success but actually fails, you can post a detailed explanation of the problem here so someone can suggest the cause.

Phil

Dennis Putnam· Jan 18, 2013, 18:59 UTC · re: Phil Hord · lore

Re: merge vs. rebase question

Thanks for the reply. I'm afraid this question has become moot. I can no longer reproduce the problem as it is now working as expected. I did find an incorrect ownership on one of the 'objects' sub-directories but I would think that should have given me an error. Perhaps I used root at the wrong time to do something and that changed the ownership. In any case there is not much I can do at this point since the problem no longer exists.

On 1/18/2013 1:38 PM, Phil Hord wrote:

Show 29 quoted lines

> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Dennis Putnam <dap1@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> As a git noob I am having trouble understanding when to use which
>> commands. I have a repository (bare) on my Linux server. I also created
>> a build directory as a local repository. In my build script I do a 'git
>> pull' to make sure the build directory is up to date. No changes are
>> made to my source so this repository never does an 'add' or 'commit'.
>> When I run my script with 'pull', the output indicates that changes were
>> found and seems to have pulled them into the local directory. However,
>> when I look at the resulting source, none of the expected changes show
>> up. I then tried a 'fetch' and 'rebase'. That worked but I don't
>> understand why. I thought 'pull' did a 'fetch' and a 'merge' so I don't
>> understand why a 'fetch' and 'rebase' worked but 'fetch' and 'merge' did
>> not. Unless my understanding of what 'pull' does is wrong. In my case,
>> what should I be using in my script to assure that the build directory
>> is current?
> If your build directory never has any source changes or new commits,
> then pull is the right thing to do.  You might want to use 'git pull
> --ff-only' to guarantee that your build directory is not creating
> merges unexpectedly.
>
> You did not provide enough information to help figure out why your
> pull is failing to achieve the results you expect.  I suggest you
> perform the pull manually in your build directory.  If it fails, git
> should tell you why.  If it reports success but actually fails, you
> can post a detailed explanation of the problem here so someone can
> suggest the cause.
>
> Phil
>