Git on bartman's blog

git-wip C++ rewrite — over a decade later

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:14:36 -0500

Many many years ago I wrote about git-wip, a tool I created to automatically snapshot your working tree on every file save. The original was a bash script, written over a few weekends in 2009. It served me well for over a decade, but it had accumulated technical debt: the bash script had issues with whitespace in filenames, it used external tools like git-sh-setup, it was getting harder to extend, slow on large repos, and so on.

A decade and a half of GitHub issues had piled up. Some were feature requests. Others were bugs. Many were just things that didn’t work on platforms that weren’t my own. I had ignored most of them — the script was good enough for me, and I didn’t really have to pull to work on it in my free time. Sorry.

That changed recently.

new git learnings

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:21:02 -0500

watching the founder of github talk about git.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aolI_Rz0ZqY

here is what I learned:

git 1.7.2 is out

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:45:22 -0400

Just announced is release of Git version 1.7.2.

Scanning through the ReleaseNotes the following look interesting:

git -c var=val will override config
git show :/pattern now uses regex
git no longer squelches if it doesn’t find .git (useful when using in PS1)
git checkout --orphan name makes a new root branch (no parent)
git cherry-pick can now be given a list of refs
git log --decorate learned to colour more things

serving http content out of a git repo

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:34:35 -0500

While preparing for my [Git]{tag/git} Workshop for Flourish Conf, I thought about serving files over http directly out of a git repo.

Here is a short shell script that I came up with: git-serv.cgi.

It takes request URLs like http://domain/examples/dir/file and looks up the objects in a bare git repository in /home/git/examples.git. It looks only on the master branch, and nothing is ever checked out. If it finds a tree object, it prints the file listing at that point in the tree. If the object is a blog, it dumps the contents. Otherwise some error is reported.

pimped out zsh prompt

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:40:49 -0500

Here is [yet another]{zsh-git-prompt} update to the series. I’ve updated my git prompt again, now using the zsh 4.3.7 built in vcs_info module. This time the motivation came from Zsh Prompt Magic article. Here is what it looks like now:

Everything is now self contained in one file: S60_prompt. Grab it and source it into your zsh config.

The features are:

name of current branch,
git repo state (rebase, am, bisect, merge, etc),
markers indicating staged/unstaged changes,
- little 1 after branch name indicates dirty working tree,
- little 2 after branch name indicates staged changes,
highlight depth decended into the repository on the right,
show failure of commands via prompt background change,
show command/insert mode when using vi mode (set -o vi).

using WIP branches to save every edit

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:53:44 -0500

I am experimenting with a new workflow to help solve the problem of lost work between commits. As described [in my previous post]{20091104194146}, there are already several ways to deal with keeping track of frequent edits. The only problem is that they all involve dedication and extra effort.

using git workflows to avoid loosing intermediate changes

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:41:46 -0500

A few days ago a buddy, Jean, had stumbled into a problem caused by infrequent committing to his git repository. Committing after the feature is implemented is common when working with tools like SVN… but we have multiple workflows available to us under git to manage frequent commits.

pimping out git log

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:50:46 -0400

I got playing with git log and ended up creating this alias:

[alias]
    lg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative

Which adds a git lg command that is a prettier version of git log --oneline.

importing an old project into git

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:43:40 -0400

I have recently been asked to revive an old project. Way back when I used to use bk for tracking changes. But today, I don’t even have a working bk tree.

Moving the history to git is easiest done by taking the tarballs I’ve published and creating a commit per tarball.

Below is a simple script that will do just that.

Why pick Git?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:32:22 -0400

Someone on the Git LinkedIn group asked “why pick Git?”. I started writing a response on LinkedIn but quickly realized I had more to say on the topic than I’d care to leave behind closed doors of LinkedIn.

If you already use Git, none of the stuff I talk about below will surprise you. But if this sparks your interest see my Git talk.

bringing git-format-patch to bzr

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:40:23 -0400

It should be of no surprise to readers of this blog that I am a fan of Git. If you know me, you will also know that I am no fan of Bzr.

I was working on something today and wanted to export a patch… you know, like git format-patch does. Well, bzr does not seem to have an equivalent.

Scott Chacon smacks git around

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:20:41 -0400

I came across a RailsConf talk given by Scott Chacon last month. As previously, his git work is really good. His presentation style has also guided my Git the basics talk which I gave about a year ago.

Anyway, I want to summarize what I learned from Scott’s presentation…

git-vim hacking

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:04:05 -0400

I did some hacking on my fork on git-vim. I am impressed how well things work. motemen, the upstream author, did a really great job setting things up.

I’ve been mostly tyoing with command handling and completion this evening. I want to make that I could type :git diff ma<tab> and have it do the rigth thing… it seems to work.

Next, I need to integrate my other git hacks and also others that seem interesting. I should also see if I can get the upstream author to consider including any of it.

splitting files out of a commit

Fri, 01 May 2009 17:26:45 -0400

I previously wrote on [splitting patches with git]{20081112150409}. This is very similar but deals with removing a file from a commit.

how old are these files in git?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:20:30 -0400

A freind asked me how he could check the age of a file in his git repository. I came up with this:

    % git ls-files | xargs -n1 -i{} git log -1 --pretty=format:"%ci {}" -- {}
    2007-04-11 11:39:31 -0400 .gitignore
    2008-10-18 10:52:27 -0400 Xdefaults
    ...

It walks through all the files tracked by git and prints the time stamp of the last commit that modified that file.

Git rocks!

splitting patches with git

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:04:09 -0500

Here is a really cool workflow using git…

Say you have several commits (you can think of them as patches for this exercise) in your current repository and want to split one into multiple parts. There could be various reaons like upstream request, only want to release part of it, remove debug code, etc.

Anyway, there is one commit in your unpublished history that needs to be split.

git-svn strangeness

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:51:13 -0400

As awesome as git-svn is, I had it fail today with this message:

    Last fetched revision of refs/remotes/branches/foo was r19307, but we are about to fetch: r19307!

To which I said: “WTF?”. I still don’t know what it means, but I can share with you how I recovered it.

It turns out that git-svn is quite capable of recovering from this. You just have to remove its meta-data for the offending branch, and resync with SVN.

installing git man pages quickly

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:29:59 -0400

I just upgraded git to get a fix for a diff buffer overflow. I built the git binaries, but this box is too slow to rebuild the man pages.

Fortunately those are already prebuilt in a separate branch. One way to install them without rebuilding them locally is to:

    # in a clone of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
    
    git archive --format=tar origin/man | sudo tar -x -C /usr/share/man/ -vf -

… with which I don’t have to rebuild man pages locally. Git rocks!

Git Screencast

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:47:04 -0400

Ian Ward posted a screencast of my Git intro talk. Thanks Richard for doing the audio, Ian for doing the screencast and post production, and Jay for hosting us.

Update: Richard took some photos of the OGRE meeting. Thanks.

Introducing the Ottawa Ruby folks to Git

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:36:02 -0400

I am giving [another]{into-to-git-talk-2} git talk for The Ottawa Group of Ruby Enthusiasts!.

The talk is on July 9th at 7:00 PM, at Infonium. I was told that they have room for 20 people.

I will post my slides after the talk.

show more git info on zsh prompt

Fri, 09 May 2008 11:15:34 -0400

UPDATE: This post was [updated]{pimping-out-zsh-prompt} (yet again).

This is my [third]{zsh-git-branch} [post]{zsh-git-branch2} on the topic. I have harshly assimulated MadCoder’s configuration. Here is my new zsh prompt:

UPDATE: I’ve [updated my prompt again]{pimping-out-zsh-prompt}.

git-vim

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:42:02 -0400

I have had an item on my todo list to improve my [vim/git]{tag/vimgit} integration for a while. Today, I found git-vim on github. I was really impressed. So I forked it and hope to do some work on the project…

    git://git.jukie.net/git-vim.git

First I will have to check if there is anything salvageable from my current vim scripts.

color your word

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:03:37 -0400

I just discovered a [git]{tag/git} feature that has eluded me since v1.4.3, when it was introduced. It’s a way to colour differing words in git diff output. Maybe you don’t know about it either… allow me demonstrate:

show current git branch on zsh prompt (2)

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:56:20 -0400

NOTE: This post has been [updated]{zsh-git-prompt} (again).

I previously wrote about [showing the git branch name on the zsh prompt]{zsh-git-branch}. Caio Marcelo pointed out that it didn’t work very well because the git branch was being queried before the command was executed, and it should be after to catch git commands that change the branch, like git branch and git checkout.

He was right, here is a repost.

how to track multiple svn branches in git

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:03:59 -0500

I must say that I am no fan of [SVN]{tag/svn}, but SVN and I get a long a lot better since I started using git-svn. Long ago a good friend of mine, Dave O’Neill, taught me how to handle multiple branches using git-svn. I had used that technique until Dave taught me how to do it better.

Recently I saw this blog post which referenced Dave’s article talking about the first method. I guess Dave never got around to updating his blog with the better way. So I am going to do that here:

show current git branch in zsh

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:13:58 -0500

NOTE: This post has been [updated]{zsh-git-branch2}.

Earlier today I saw a blog post titled “Git in your prompt” which showed how to get the current git branch to display in zsh and bash. I tried it on my setup and found it really slow, probably due having $HOME on NFS or having big git repos or maybe not enough ram.

Anyway, after looking at some zsh docs and blog posts, I had added caching to the idea. Now the git-branch is only queried on a directory change or on a command that matches *git*.

git-rebase --interactive

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:41:25 -0400

MadCoder wrote today about git-rebase –interactive which is a new feature in git that allows you to easily reorder, or fix patches already applied to the current branch by editing a file… very neat.

svn status like output in git

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:26:46 -0400

Today Dave asked me how to get a script-friendly list of untracked files, and modified files… like svn status.

First I suggested that he look at --diff-filter and --name-status options for git-diff.

    git diff --name-status --diff-filter=M

While git-diff can actually report a lot of cool stuff (see the git-diff-files man page for more details), it did not solve all the problems. The above worked for getting the list of modified files, but not for untracked files. We scratched our heads and were unable to get anywhere.

Git Cheat Sheet

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:18:47 -0400

Zack Rusin “took a break from being insanely handsome” and created a stunning Git Cheat Sheet.

There are three formats:

(these are distributed under the Creative Commons License)

Now I have to figure out how I can print it in colour.

git-svnup

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:25:31 -0400

My employer (or client, since I am a contractor there) uses [svn]{tag/svn}. I prefer to use [git]{tag/git}.

This following git allows me to update all tracked svn branches in my git-svn repository:

    git config --get alias.svnup
    !git-config --get-regexp 'svn-remote.*url' | cut -d . -f 2 | xargs -n1 git-svn fetch

The way to invoke it is to run:

    git svnup
    git-svn rebase some-remote-snv-branch

You need to put that into your ~/.gitconfig like so:

git slides updated

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:19:16 -0400

I recently gave my [git talk]{20070329011735} for a client. I had about 3.5 hours, and found that was quite adequate to relay all the information. My slides are available in PDF and the magicpoint source.

git-svn with multiple branches

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:58:52 -0400

Dave recently wrote about git-svn with multiple branches. Worth a read if you want to use git in a hostile svn environment.

Linus on Git at Google

Thu, 17 May 2007 08:53:21 -0400

YouTube has a good talk by Linus Torvalds on why you would want to use git.

I think a few points he sold very well, and a few were very Linus-centric. It’s worth a watch.

gitdiff.vba v2

Wed, 02 May 2007 21:19:41 -0400

I released version 2 of my gitdiff.vba vim script.

It now supports two features:

:GITDiff [commitish]

Split the vim window vertically, display the HEAD, or some other changeset, version of the file in the split, then diff them.
:GITChanges [commitish]

Highlight lines that were changed since the HEAD or some other changeset.

I also started using the VimBall script, which is a package format for vim scripts. So to install it, you need to first have the vimball extension. Further, if you have the GetLatestVimScripts you can use the :GLVS commands to automatically upgrade your packages.

GITDiff vim plugin

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:10:19 -0400

Taking a TODO item off my list, I am adding a plugin to vim that splits the current window and presents a diff between the current file and any revision of that file in the current git repository.

git presentation for OCLUG

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:17:35 -0400

I am giving a intro to git tutorial for oclug tomorrow.

Here are the slides in PDF format. If you are one of the lucky ones and magic point works for you, you can also grab the source tarball.

etc snapshots with git

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:47:06 -0400

I got this idea from a blog posting a few months back. I think the guy was using darcs. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the reference to link to him.

Anyway, here is how you can track your /etc directory with git, and have apt update it automatically each time a package is installed.

git caching for v1.5.x

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:13:16 -0500

I wrote about [git caching]{git-caching} several months back. The term, git caching, was something I had given a local repository that can be used as a reference for multiple projects. New features in the recently released git 1.5.x requires that I blog again about this great tool.

Recap: I am working on a linux patch – [klips]{tags/openswan} to be specific. I have more repositories then I know what to do with. Git has this cool feature where it can point to another directory to find it’s object files, this is called alternate or reference repository.

fetching all git branches from remote

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:20:27 -0500

When you clone a new git repository, using a recent git release, by default git will create a .git/remotes/origin with all remote branches. This file lists all remote branches that are to be updated on a fetch.

Over time the remote may get more branches, and it may be necessary to update the remote branch list. The way to find out what is available at a remote is to call git-ls-remote origin, then pick out the branches of interest, and add them to the .git/remotes/origin file.

local caching for git repos

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 11:16:07 -0400

I try to minimize the amount of data I pull from git repositories. To do this I have a directory on my file server that has a bunch of clones of git (and hg and previously bk) repositories. All of these are exported and mounted on my other machines in /site/scm/. I will refer to this as cache :)

Next, I have a cron job that regularly updates those trees from the their upstream counterparts. All my working copies are cloned from those repositories using the --local --shared mode, or using --reference if I think I will be committing upstream any time soon.

automatic version creation with git

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:54:37 -0400

openswan is going through a process of redefining what their versions numbers will mean… what’s stable, what’s testing, what’s devel, etc.

I participated in the discovery of how to do this automagically from git release tags. Patrick was so happy with the results that the conversation ended with …

    14:49 <patlap> C'mon bart, blog it :-)

… and how can I tell the CEO of Xelerance “no” :)

git-find findings

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 10:55:00 -0400

So I have a simple git-find working, and now I want to use it to rip out some patches I am interested in. The repository I am working on has a lot of uninteresting deltas in it that I don’t care about. I am actually only interesting in backporting an interface change in one file from the klipsng branch:

    $ git-find klipsng --file linux/net/ipsec/ipsec_sa.c
    ...

This works as advertised, I get a list of revisions that altered that file. The current git command line parsing does not allow me to do much with this however.

starting on git-find

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:29:41 -0400

So I am giving myself some time to write a git-find script that I can use to feed commits to another tool, like git-graft (or git-cherry-pick).

I don’t really know what I am doing yet, so I want to survey what is available in git-* tools and reuse as much of the available features.

git-graft and git-find brainstorm

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:36:32 -0400

I want to be able to take a bunch of patches that were applied to one semi-related branch and appened them to the current branch, or better yet a new branch of the current. The bunch of patches will be selected by what they change; I should be able to graft all patches that modify some file, or modify some regular expression.

Here is what I mean:

 ,-----X---X---X---X--- ... ---             "historical" branch
o
 `--------------------Y                     "current" branch
                       \
                        `---Z---Z---...     "working" branch

You start off at current branch and run something like:

git-find historical --file some_file.c --or --re 'some pattern' \
| git-graft --new-branch working -

This will let me take the interesting subset of X commits and apply them at some point Y. Should the patches X cause conflicts with the current branch, then git-graft needs to let the user resolve those conflicts a patch at a time. The default is to apply onto the current branch, however if desired it should be possible to create the changes on a new, working, branch. The result is a new set of Z commits, as shown above.

reverting a git changeset

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:22:56 -0400

I accidentally committed a changeset without a description and wanted to fix it. As I was pushing enter I realized that I didn’t want to commit yet. I have not pushed anywhere – an important requirement for this kind of revert.

I basically want to do a bk fix -c (if I recall my bk correctly).

Since git revert pollutes the history, it is not the right thing to do here since the bad changeset was not pushed. But it would be the right thing to do had I pushed my change.

git vs hg

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:14:02 -0400

After working almost exclusively with git for a few months, I had to do some work on a freebsd kernel. The freebsd kernel is maintained in mercurial. I noticed right away a few features that I have started to take for granted with git.

learning to love git

Thu, 25 May 2006 23:41:48 -0400

I’ve been working for Xelerance, mcr’s company, for a couple of weeks now. The project I am working on is mostly bringing KLIPS, openswan ipsec kernel module, into the 21st centry. Since KLIPS is a patch against the Linux kernel, it makes sense to keep it in git.