threads / discuss / 55415

Branches, upstreams, rebases and logistics

Subject: Branches, upstreams, rebases and logistics

## tl;dr

2 messages between Mar 30, 2021 and Mar 31, 2021.

replies: 1people: 2as markdown or json

stdedos@gmail.com· Mar 30, 2021, 20:28 UTC · lore

I was reading this thread: https://lore.kernel.org/git/YFP+KuUn99vftBIC@camp.crustytoothpaste.net/

and, in specific:

> ..., many fixup and squash commits and near constant rebases.

which speaks to me somewhat heavily.

As this could be a discussion forum, I'd like to see how other people are dealing with / have done for these:

I clone a repository, I do changes on top of a branch, I push for review, ... and the cycle continues until merging.

It is trivial, when native `git push/pull` is used to push/pull to/from one remote which I have access, as `pull --rebase` works magically in keeping the local state up-to-date.

It also works with the repos that you do not have direct access to push natively on the branch nowhere, as you can keep using the `pull --rebase` to sync, and "push" with some other method (`refs/for`, `git-send-email`, or others which I don't know).

However, with the Github way of working, that means: I have two remotes, (origin and upstream), on which, I develop and push on the `origin`, but I am really tracking/rebasing on/from `upstream`.

I cannot `--track` upstream, as plain `git push` won't work, and for pull, I have to separately `git fetch --all`, `git rebase upstream/<branch>`

- OR -

I have a branch, which depends on top of another branch (not yet merged upstream).

o - origin/master
 \
  o---o---o---o
  |            \
  fix/local     o--o - (fix/depends-on-local)

For brevity, I am setting "git branch --set-upstream-to=fix/local", which helps, when rebasing fix/local on top of origin/master, to rebase fix/depends-on-local on top of fix/local.

However, as noted above, a branch cannot be pushed upstream easily and have a different upstream set at the same time.

I know my logic/understanding is lacking somewhere; I am looking forward to enlightenment :-D

Jeff King· Mar 31, 2021, 11:32 UTC · re: stdedos@gmail.com · lore

Re: Branches, upstreams, rebases and logistics

On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 11:28:52PM +0300, stdedos@gmail.com wrote:

Show 23 quoted lines

> However, with the Github way of working, that means:
> I have two remotes, (origin and upstream), on which, I develop and
> push on the `origin`, but I am really tracking/rebasing on/from `upstream`.
> 
> I cannot `--track` upstream, as plain `git push` won't work, and
> for pull, I have to separately `git fetch --all`, `git rebase upstream/<branch>`
> 
> - OR -
> 
> I have a branch, which depends on top of another branch (not yet merged upstream).
> 
> o - origin/master
>  \
>   o---o---o---o
>   |            \
>   fix/local     o--o - (fix/depends-on-local)
> 
> For brevity, I am setting "git branch --set-upstream-to=fix/local",
> which helps, when rebasing fix/local on top of origin/master, to rebase
> fix/depends-on-local on top of fix/local.
> 
> However, as noted above, a branch cannot be pushed upstream easily and
> have a different upstream set at the same time.

This is usually called a "triangular" workflow; you can find some discussion in the list archive and documentation by searching for that term.

But in short, what you probably want is to set:

  git config remote.pushdefault yourfork

(I'm not entirely sure, but I think "yourfork" is "origin" in your example). Which means that "git push" will behave as you'd like, pushing to your fork. And you are free to set the "upstream" of each branch to the thing it is based on (again, assuming your "upstream" remote is the actual upstream project that you can't push to):

  git branch --set-upstream-to=upstream/master fix/local
  git branch --set-upstream-to=fix/local fix/depends-on-local

And then from either "fix/local" or "fix/depends-on-local" branches, you can "git pull --rebase" (or in the case of the latter, just "git rebase" would do the same thing).

-Peff