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| 1 The git-cl README describes the git-cl command set. This document |
| 2 describes how code review and git work together in general, intended |
| 3 for people familiar with git but unfamiliar with the code review |
| 4 process supported by Rietveld. |
| 5 |
| 6 == Concepts and terms |
| 7 A Rietveld review is for discussion of a single change or patch. You |
| 8 upload a proposed change, the reviewer comments on your change, and |
| 9 then you can upload a revised version of your change. Rietveld stores |
| 10 the history of uploaded patches as well as the comments, and can |
| 11 compute diffs in between these patches. The history of a patch is |
| 12 very much like a small branch in git, but since Rietveld is |
| 13 VCS-agnostic the concepts don't map perfectly. The identifier for a |
| 14 single review+patches+comments in Rietveld is called an "issue". |
| 15 |
| 16 Rietveld provides a basic uploader that understands git. This program |
| 17 is used by git-cl, and is included in the git-cl repo as upload.py. |
| 18 |
| 19 == Basic interaction with git |
| 20 The fundamental problem you encounter when you try to mix git and code |
| 21 review is that with git it's nice to commit code locally, while during |
| 22 a code review you're often requested to change something about your |
| 23 code. There are a few different ways you can handle this workflow |
| 24 with git: |
| 25 |
| 26 1) Rewriting a single commit. Say the origin commit is O, and you |
| 27 commit your initial work in a commit A, making your history like |
| 28 O--A. After review comments, you commit --amend, effectively |
| 29 erasing A and making a new commit A', so history is now O--A'. |
| 30 (Equivalently, you can use git reset --soft or git rebase -i.) |
| 31 |
| 32 2) Writing follow-up commits. Initial work is again in A, and after |
| 33 review comments, you write a new commit B so your history looks |
| 34 like O--A--B. When you upload the revised patch, you upload the |
| 35 diff of O..B, not A..B; you always upload the full diff of what |
| 36 you're proposing to change. |
| 37 |
| 38 The Rietveld patch uploader just takes arguments to "git diff", so |
| 39 either of the above workflows work fine. If all you want to do is |
| 40 upload a patch, you can use the upload.py provided by Rietveld with |
| 41 arguments like this: |
| 42 |
| 43 upload.py --server server.com <args to "git diff"> |
| 44 |
| 45 The first time you upload, it creates a new issue; for follow-ups on |
| 46 the same issue, you need to provide the issue number: |
| 47 |
| 48 upload.py --server server.com --issue 1234 <args to "git diff"> |
| 49 |
| 50 == git-cl to the rescue |
| 51 git-cl simplifies the above in the following ways: |
| 52 |
| 53 1) "git cl config" puts a persistent --server setting in your .git/config. |
| 54 |
| 55 2) The first time you upload an issue, the issue number is associated with |
| 56 the current *branch*. If you upload again, it will upload on the same |
| 57 issue. (Note that this association is tied to a branch, not a commit, |
| 58 which means you need a separate branch per review.) |
| 59 |
| 60 3) If your branch is "tracking" (in the "git checkout --track" sense) |
| 61 another one (like origin/master), calls to "git cl upload" will |
| 62 diff against that branch by default. (You can still pass arguments |
| 63 to "git diff" on the command line, if necessary.) |
| 64 |
| 65 In the common case, this means that calling simply "git cl upload" |
| 66 will always upload the correct diff to the correct place. |
| 67 |
| 68 == Patch series |
| 69 The above is all you need to know for working on a single patch. |
| 70 |
| 71 Things get much more complicated when you have a series of commits |
| 72 that you want to get reviewed. Say your history looks like |
| 73 O--A--B--C. If you want to upload that as a single review, everything |
| 74 works just as above. |
| 75 |
| 76 But what if you upload each of A, B, and C as separate reviews? |
| 77 What if you then need to change A? |
| 78 |
| 79 1) One option is rewriting history: write a new commit A', then use |
| 80 git rebase -i to insert that diff in as O--A--A'--B--C as well as |
| 81 squash it. This is sometimes not possible if B and C have touched |
| 82 some lines affected by A'. |
| 83 |
| 84 2) Another option, and the one espoused by software like topgit, is for |
| 85 you to have separate branches for A, B, and C, and after writing A' |
| 86 you merge it into each of those branches. (topgit automates this |
| 87 merging process.) This is also what is recommended by git-cl, which |
| 88 likes having different branch identifiers to hang the issue number |
| 89 off of. Your history ends up looking like: |
| 90 |
| 91 O---A---B---C |
| 92 \ \ \ |
| 93 A'--B'--C' |
| 94 |
| 95 Which is ugly, but it accurately tracks the real history of your work, can |
| 96 be thrown away at the end by committing A+A' as a single "squash" commit. |
| 97 |
| 98 In practice, this comes up pretty rarely. Suggestions for better workflows |
| 99 are welcome. |
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