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