1 =========================================
2 TopGit -- A different patch queue manager
3 =========================================
9 TopGit aims to make handling of large amounts of interdependent topic
10 branches easier. In fact, it is designed especially for the case where
11 you maintain a queue of third-party patches on top of another (perhaps
12 Git-controlled) project and want to easily organize, maintain and submit
13 them -- TopGit achieves that by keeping a separate topic branch for each
14 patch and providing some tools to maintain the branches.
20 See the file ``INSTALL``.
26 The TopGit git repository can be found at <http://repo.or.cz/topgit/pro>.
32 Why not use something like StGIT or Guilt or ``rebase -i`` for maintaining
33 your patch queue? The advantage of these tools is their simplicity;
34 they work with patch *series* and defer to the reflog facility for
35 version control of patches (reordering of patches is not
36 version-controlled at all). But there are several disadvantages -- for
37 one, these tools (especially StGIT) do not actually fit well with plain
38 Git at all: it is basically impossible to take advantage of the index
39 effectively when using StGIT. But more importantly, these tools
40 horribly fail in the face of a distributed environment.
42 TopGit has been designed around three main tenets:
44 (i) TopGit is as thin a layer on top of Git as possible. You
45 still maintain your index and commit using Git; TopGit will only
46 automate a few indispensable tasks.
48 (ii) TopGit is anxious about *keeping* your history. It will
49 never rewrite your history, and all metadata is also tracked
50 by Git, smoothly and non-obnoxiously. It is good to have a
51 *single* point when the history is cleaned up, and that is at
52 the point of inclusion in the upstream project; locally, you
53 can see how your patch has evolved and easily return to older
56 (iii) TopGit is specifically designed to work in a
57 distributed environment. You can have several instances of
58 TopGit-aware repositories and smoothly keep them all
59 up-to-date and transfer your changes between them.
61 As mentioned above, the main intended use-case for TopGit is tracking
62 third-party patches, where each patch is effectively a single topic
63 branch. In order to flexibly accommodate even complex scenarios when
64 you track many patches where many are independent but some depend on
65 others, TopGit ignores the ancient Quilt heritage of patch series and
66 instead allows the patches to freely form graphs (DAGs just like Git
67 history itself, only "one level higher"). For now, you have to manually
68 specify which patches the current one depends on, but TopGit might help
69 you with that in the future in a darcs-like fashion.
71 A glossary plug: The union (i.e. merge) of patch dependencies is called
72 a *base* of the patch (topic branch).
74 Of course, TopGit is perhaps not the right tool for you:
76 (i) TopGit is not complicated, but StGIT et al. are somewhat
77 simpler, conceptually. If you just want to make a linear
78 purely-local patch queue, deferring to StGIT instead might
81 (ii) When using TopGit, your history can get a little hairy
82 over time, especially with all the merges rippling through.
91 ## Create and evolve a topic branch
92 $ tg create t/gitweb/pathinfo-action
93 tg: Automatically marking dependency on master
94 tg: Creating t/gitweb/pathinfo-action base from master...
100 ## Create another topic branch on top of the former one
101 $ tg create t/gitweb/nifty-links
102 tg: Automatically marking dependency on t/gitweb/pathinfo-action
103 tg: Creating t/gitweb/nifty-links base from t/gitweb/pathinfo-action...
107 ## Create another topic branch on top of master and submit
108 ## the resulting patch upstream
109 $ tg create t/revlist/author-fixed master
110 tg: Creating t/revlist/author-fixed base from master...
114 tg: Sent t/revlist/author-fixed
116 To: git@vger.kernel.org
117 Cc: gitster@pobox.com
118 Subject: [PATCH] Fix broken revlist --author when --fixed-string
120 ## Create another topic branch depending on two others non-trivially
121 $ tg create t/whatever t/revlist/author-fixed t/gitweb/nifty-links
122 tg: Creating t/whatever base from t/revlist/author-fixed...
123 tg: Merging t/whatever base with t/gitweb/nifty-links...
125 tg: Please commit merge resolution and call: tg create
126 tg: It is also safe to abort this operation using `git reset --hard`
127 tg: but please remember you are on the base branch now;
128 tg: you will want to switch to a different branch.
132 tg: Resuming t/whatever setup...
136 ## Update a single topic branch and propagate the changes to
138 $ git checkout t/gitweb/nifty-links
141 $ git checkout t/whatever
143 Topic Branch: t/whatever (1 commit)
144 Subject: [PATCH] Whatever patch
146 Depends: t/revlist/author-fixed t/gitweb/nifty-links
148 t/gitweb/nifty-links (1 commit)
150 tg: Updating base with t/gitweb/nifty-links changes...
152 tg: Please commit merge resolution and call `tg update` again.
153 tg: It is also safe to abort this operation using `git reset --hard`,
154 tg: but please remember you are on the base branch now;
155 tg: you will want to switch to a different branch.
159 tg: Updating t/whatever against new base...
161 tg: Please resolve the merge and commit. No need to do anything else.
162 tg: You can abort this operation using `git reset --hard` now
163 tg: and retry this merge later using `tg update`.
167 ## Update a single topic branch and propagate the changes
168 ## further through the dependency chain
169 $ git checkout t/gitweb/pathinfo-action
172 $ git checkout t/whatever
174 Topic Branch: t/whatever (1/2 commits)
175 Subject: [PATCH] Whatever patch
177 Depends: t/revlist/author-fixed t/gitweb/nifty-links
179 t/gitweb/pathinfo-action (<= t/gitweb/nifty-links) (1 commit)
181 tg: Recursing to t/gitweb/nifty-links...
182 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: Updating base with t/gitweb/pathinfo-action changes...
184 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: Please commit merge resolution and call `tg update` again.
185 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: It is also safe to abort this operation using `git reset --hard`,
186 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: but please remember you are on the base branch now;
187 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: you will want to switch to a different branch.
188 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: You are in a subshell. If you abort the merge,
189 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: use `exit` to abort the recursive update altogether.
190 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ ..resolve..
191 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ git commit
192 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ tg update
193 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: Updating t/gitweb/nifty-links against new base...
195 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: Please resolve the merge and commit.
196 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: You can abort this operation using `git reset --hard`.
197 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: You are in a subshell. After you either commit or abort
198 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] tg: your merge, use `exit` to proceed with the recursive update.
199 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ ..resolve..
200 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ git commit
201 [t/gitweb/nifty-links] $ exit
202 tg: Updating base with t/gitweb/nifty-links changes...
203 tg: Updating t/whatever against new base...
205 ## Clone a TopGit-controlled repository
208 $ tg remote --populate origin
213 ## Add a TopGit remote to a repository and push to it
214 $ git remote add foo URL
218 ## Update from a non-default TopGit remote
226 ``tg [-C <dir>] [-r <remote> | -u] <subcommand> [<subcommand option/argument>...]``
228 -C <dir> Change directory to <dir> before doing anything
229 -r <remote> Pretend ``topgit.remote`` is set to <remote>
230 -u Pretend ``topgit.remote`` is not set
232 The ``tg`` tool has several subcommands:
236 Our sophisticated integrated help facility. Mostly duplicates
241 # to get help for a particular command:
243 # to get help for a particular command in a browser window:
244 $ tg help -w <command>
245 # to get help on TopGit itself
247 # to get help on TopGit itself in a browser
252 Create a new TopGit-controlled topic branch of the given name
253 (required argument) and switch to it. If no dependencies are
254 specified (by extra arguments passed after the first one), the
255 current branch is assumed to be the only dependency.
257 After ``tg create``, you should insert the patch description into
258 the ``.topmsg`` file, which will already contain some prefilled
259 bits. You can set the ``topgit.to``, ``topgit.cc`` and ``topgit.bcc``
260 git configuration variables (see ``man git-config``) in order to
261 have ``tg create`` add these headers with the given default values
264 The main task of ``tg create`` is to set up the topic branch base
265 from the dependencies. This may fail due to merge conflicts.
266 In that case, after you commit the conflict resolution, you
267 should call ``tg create`` again (without any arguments); it will
268 detect that you are on a topic branch base ref and resume the
269 topic branch creation operation.
271 In an alternative use case, if ``-r <branch>`` is given instead of a
272 dependency list, the topic branch is created based on the given
277 Remove a TopGit-controlled topic branch of the given name
278 (required argument). Normally, this command will remove only an
279 empty branch (base == head) without dependendents; use ``-f`` to
280 remove a non-empty branch or a branch that is depended upon by
283 The ``-f`` option is also useful to force removal of a branch's
284 base, if you used ``git branch -D B`` to remove branch B, and then
285 certain TopGit commands complain, because the base of branch B
288 IMPORTANT: Currently, this command will *NOT* remove the branch
289 from the dependency list in other branches. You need to take
290 care of this *manually*. This is even more complicated in
291 combination with ``-f`` -- in that case, you need to manually
292 unmerge the removed branch's changes from the branches depending
295 See also ``tg annihilate``.
297 | TODO: ``-a`` to delete all empty branches, depfix, revert
301 Make a commit on the current TopGit-controlled topic branch
302 that makes it equal to its base, including the presence or
303 absence of .topmsg and .topdeps. Annihilated branches are not
304 displayed by ``tg summary``, so they effectively get out of your
305 way. However, the branch still exists, and ``tg push`` will
306 push it (except if given the ``-a`` option). This way, you can
307 communicate that the branch is no longer wanted.
309 When annihilating a branch that has dependents (i.e. branches
310 that depend on it), those dependents have the dependencies of
311 the branch being annihilated added to them if they do not already
312 have them as dependencies. Essentially the DAG is repaired to
313 skip over the annihilated branch.
315 Normally, this command will remove only an empty branch
316 (base == head, except for changes to the .top* files); use
317 ``-f`` to annihilate a non-empty branch.
321 Change the dependencies of a TopGit-controlled topic branch.
322 This should have several subcommands, but only ``add`` is
325 The ``add`` subcommand takes an argument naming a topic branch to
326 be added, adds it to ``.topdeps``, performs a commit and then
327 updates your topic branch accordingly. If you want to do other
328 things related to the dependency addition, like adjusting
329 ``.topmsg``, prepare them in the index before calling ``tg depend
332 | TODO: Subcommand for removing dependencies, obviously
336 List files changed by the current or specified topic branch.
339 -i list files based on index instead of branch
340 -w list files based on working tree instead of branch
344 Show summary information about the current or specified topic
347 Numbers in parenthesis after a branch name such as "(11/3 commits)"
348 indicate how many commits on the branch (11) and how many of those
349 are non-merge commits (3).
353 Generate a patch from the current or specified topic branch.
354 This means that the diff between the topic branch base and head
355 (latest commit) is shown, appended to the description found in
356 the ``.topmsg`` file.
358 The patch is simply dumped to stdout. In the future, ``tg patch``
359 will be able to automatically send the patches by mail or save
360 them to files. (TODO)
363 -i base patch generation on index instead of branch
364 -w base patch generation on working tree instead of branch
368 Send a patch from the current or specified topic branch as
371 Takes the patch given on the command line and emails it out.
372 Destination addresses such as To, Cc and Bcc are taken from the
375 Since it actually boils down to ``git send-email``, please refer
376 to the documentation for that for details on how to setup email
377 for git. You can pass arbitrary options to this command through
378 the ``-s`` parameter, but you must double-quote everything. The
379 ``-r`` parameter with a msgid can be used to generate in-reply-to
380 and reference headers to an earlier mail.
382 WARNING: be careful when using this command. It easily sends
383 out several mails. You might want to run::
385 git config sendemail.confirm always
387 to let ``git send-email`` ask for confirmation before sending any
391 -i base patch generation on index instead of branch
392 -w base patch generation on working tree instead of branch
394 | TODO: ``tg mail patchfile`` to mail an already exported patch
395 | TODO: mailing patch series
396 | TODO: specifying additional options and addresses on command line
400 Register the given remote as TopGit-controlled. This will create
401 the namespace for the remote branch bases and teach ``git fetch``
402 to operate on them. However, from TopGit 0.8 onwards you need to
403 use ``tg push``, or ``git push --mirror``, for pushing
404 TopGit-controlled branches.
406 ``tg remote`` takes an optional remote name argument, and an
407 optional ``--populate`` switch. Use ``--populate`` for your
408 origin-style remotes: it will seed the local topic branch system
409 based on the remote topic branches. ``--populate`` will also make
410 ``tg remote`` automatically fetch the remote, and ``tg update`` look
411 at branches of this remote for updates by default.
413 Using ``--populate`` with a remote name causes the ``topgit.remote``
414 git configuration variable to be set to the given remote name.
418 Show overview of all TopGit-tracked topic branches and their
419 up-to-date status. With a branch name limit output to that branch:
422 marks the current topic branch
425 indicates that it introduces no changes of its own
428 indicates respectively whether it is local-only
432 indicates respectively if it is ahead or out-of-date
433 with respect to its remote mate
436 indicates that it is out-of-date with respect to its
440 indicates that it has missing dependencies [even if
441 they are recursive ones]
444 indicates that it is out-of-date with respect to
447 This can take a long time to accurately determine all the
448 relevant information about each branch; you can pass ``-t`` to get
449 just a terse list of topic branch names quickly. Alternately,
450 you can pass ``--graphviz`` to get a dot-suitable output to draw a
451 dependency graph between the topic branches.
453 You can also use the ``--sort`` option to sort the branches using
454 a topological sort. This is especially useful if each
455 TopGit-tracked topic branch depends on a single parent branch,
456 since it will then print the branches in the dependency order.
457 In more complex scenarios, a text graph view would be much more
458 useful, but that has not yet been implemented.
460 The --deps option outputs dependency information between
461 branches in a machine-readable format. Feed this to ``tsort`` to
462 get the output from --sort.
464 The --rdeps option outputs dependency information in an indented
465 text format that clearly shows all the dependencies and their
466 relationships to one another. By specifying a branch name the
467 dependency tree output can be limited to that for a single branch.
469 Note that the branch name can be specified as ``HEAD`` as a shortcut for
470 the TopGit-controlled branch that ``HEAD`` is a symbolic ref to.
473 -i Use TopGit metadata from the index instead of the branch
474 -w Use TopGit metadata from the working tree instead of the branch
476 | TODO: Speed up by an order of magnitude
477 | TODO: Text graph view
481 Switch to a topic branch. You can use ``git checkout <branch>``
482 to get the same effect, but this command helps you navigate
483 the dependency graph, or allows you to match the topic branch
484 name using a regular expression, so it can be more convenient.
486 There following subcommands are available:
489 Check out a branch that directly
490 depends on your current branch.
493 Check out a branch that this branch
496 ``tg checkout goto <pattern>``
497 Check out a topic branch that
498 matches ``<pattern>``. ``<pattern>``
499 is used as a sed pattern to filter
500 all the topic branches.
503 An alias for ``push``.
505 ``tg checkout child``
506 An alias for ``push``.
509 An alias for ``push``.
512 An alias for ``pop``.
514 ``tg checkout parent``
515 An alias for ``pop``.
518 An alias for ``pop``.
520 If any of the above commands can find more than one possible
521 branch to switch to, you will be presented with the matches
522 and ask to select one of them.
524 The ``<pattern>`` of ``tg checkout goto`` is optional. If you don't
525 supply it, all the available topic branches are listed and you
526 can select one of them.
528 Normally, the ``push`` and ``pop`` commands moves one step in
529 the dependency graph of the topic branches. The ``-a`` option
530 causes them (and their aliases) to move as far as possible.
531 That is, ``tg checkout push -a`` moves to a topic branch that
532 depends (directly or indirectly) on the current branch and
533 that no other branch depends on. ``tg checkout pop -a``
534 moves to a regular branch that the current topic branch
535 depends on (directly or indirectly). If there is more than
536 one possibility, you will be prompted for your selection.
540 Export a tidied-up history of the current topic branch and its
541 dependencies, suitable for feeding upstream. Each topic branch
542 corresponds to a single commit or patch in the cleaned up
543 history (corresponding basically exactly to ``tg patch`` output
544 for the topic branch).
546 The command has three possible outputs now -- either a Git branch
547 with the collapsed history, a Git branch with a linearized
548 history, or a quilt series in new directory.
550 In the case where you are producing collapsed history in a new
551 branch, you can use this collapsed structure either for
552 providing a pull source for upstream, or for further
553 linearization e.g. for creation of a quilt series using git log::
555 git log --pretty=email -p --topo-order origin..exported
557 To better understand the function of ``tg export``, consider this
558 dependency structure::
560 origin/master - t/foo/blue - t/foo/red - master
561 `- t/bar/good <,----------'
562 `- t/baz ------------'
564 (where each of the branches may have a hefty history). Then::
566 master$ tg export for-linus
568 will create this commit structure on the branch ``for-linus``::
570 origin/master - t/foo/blue -. merge - t/foo/red -.. merge - master
571 `- t/bar/good <,-------------------'/
572 `- t/baz ---------------------'
574 In this mode, ``tg export`` works on the current topic branch, and
575 can be called either without an option (in that case,
576 ``--collapse`` is assumed), or with the ``--collapse`` option, and
577 with one mandatory argument: the name of the branch where the
578 exported result will be stored.
580 When using the linearize mode::
582 master$ tg export --linearize for-linus
584 you get a linear history respecting the dependencies of your
585 patches in a new branch ``for-linus``. The result should be more
586 or less the same as using quilt mode and then reimporting it
587 into a Git branch. (More or less because the topological order
588 can usually be extended in more than one way into a total order,
589 and the two methods may choose different ones.) The result
590 might be more appropriate for merging upstream, as it contains
593 Note that you might get conflicts during linearization because
594 the patches are reordered to get a linear history.
596 When using the quilt mode::
598 master$ tg export --quilt for-linus
600 would create the following directory ``for-linus``::
602 for-linus/t/foo/blue.diff
603 for-linus/t/foo/red.diff
604 for-linus/t/bar/good.diff
612 With ``--quilt``, you can also pass the ``-b`` parameter followed
613 by a comma-separated explicit list of branches to export, or
614 the ``--all`` parameter (which can be shortened to ``-a``) to
615 export them all. These options are currently only supported
618 In ``--quilt`` mode the patches are named like the originating
619 topgit branch. So usually they end up in subdirectories of the
620 output directory. With the ``--flatten`` option the names are
621 mangled so that they end up directly in the output dir (slashes
622 are substituted by underscores). With the ``--strip[=N]`` option
623 the first ``N`` subdirectories (all if no ``N`` is given) get
624 stripped off. Names are always ``--strip``'d before being
625 ``--flatten``'d. With the option ``--numbered`` (which implies
626 ``--flatten``) the patch names get a number as prefix to allow
627 getting the order without consulting the series file, which
628 eases sending out the patches.
630 | TODO: Make stripping of non-essential headers configurable
631 | TODO: Make stripping of [PATCH] and other prefixes configurable
632 | TODO: ``--mbox`` option to export instead as an mbox file
633 | TODO: support ``--all`` option in other modes of operation
634 | TODO: For quilt exporting, export the linearized history created in
635 a temporary branch--this would allow producing conflict-less
640 Import commits within the given revision range into TopGit,
641 creating one topic branch per commit. The dependencies are set
642 up to form a linear sequence starting on your current branch --
643 or a branch specified by the ``-d`` parameter, if present.
645 The branch names are auto-guessed from the commit messages and
646 prefixed by ``t/`` by default; use ``-p <prefix>`` to specify an
647 alternative prefix (even an empty one).
649 Alternatively, you can use the ``-s NAME`` parameter to specify
650 the name of the target branch; the command will then take one
651 more argument describing a *single* commit to import.
655 Update the current, specified or all topic branches with respect
656 to changes in the branches they depend on and remote branches.
657 This is performed in two phases -- first, changes within the
658 dependencies are merged to the base, then the base is merged
659 into the topic branch. The output will guide you on what to do
660 next in case of conflicts.
662 When ``-a`` is specifed, updates all topic branches matched by
663 ``<pattern>``'s (see ``git-for-each-ref(1)`` for details), or all
664 if no ``<pattern>`` is given. Any topic branches with missing
665 dependencies will be skipped entirely unless ``--skip`` is specified.
667 When ``--skip`` is specifed, an attempt is made to update topic
668 branches with missing dependencies by skipping only the dependencies
669 that are missing. Caveat utilitor
671 After the update, if a single topic branch was specified, it is
672 left as the current one; if ``-a`` was specified, it returns to
673 the branch which was current at the beginning.
675 If your dependencies are not up-to-date, ``tg update`` will first
676 recurse into them and update them.
678 If a remote branch update brings in dependencies on branches
679 that are not yet instantiated locally, you can either bring in
680 all the new branches from the remote using ``tg remote
681 --populate``, or only pick out the missing ones using ``tg create
682 -r`` (``tg summary`` will point out branches with incomplete
683 dependencies by showing an ``!`` next to them).
685 | TODO: ``tg update -a -c`` to autoremove (clean) up-to-date branches
689 If ``-a`` or ``--all`` was specified, pushes all non-annihilated
690 TopGit-controlled topic branches, to a remote repository.
691 Otherwise, pushes the specified topic branches -- or the
692 current branch, if you don't specify which. By default, the
693 remote gets all the dependencies (both TopGit-controlled and
694 non-TopGit-controlled) and bases pushed to it too. If
695 ``--tgish-only`` was specified, only TopGit-controlled
696 dependencies will be pushed, and if ``--no-deps`` was specified,
697 no dependencies at all will be pushed.
699 The ``--dry-run`` and ``--force`` options are passed directly to
700 ``git push`` if given.
702 The remote may be specified with the ``-r`` option. If no remote
703 was specified, the configured default TopGit remote will be
708 Prints the base commit of each of the named topic branches, or
709 the current branch if no branches are named. Prints an error
710 message and exits with exit code 1 if the named branch is not
715 Prints the git log of the named topgit branch -- or the current
716 branch, if you don't specify a name.
718 NOTE: if you have merged changes from a different repository, this
719 command might not list all interesting commits.
723 Outputs the direct dependencies for the current or named branch.
726 -i show dependencies based on index instead of branch
727 -w show dependencies based on working tree instead of branch
731 Outputs all branches which directly depend on the current or
735 -i show dependencies based on index instead of branch
736 -w show dependencies based on working tree instead of branch
744 TopGit stores all the topic branches in the regular ``refs/heads/``
745 namespace (so we recommend distinguishing them with the ``t/`` prefix).
746 Apart from that, TopGit also maintains a set of auxiliary refs in
747 ``refs/top-*``. Currently, only ``refs/top-bases/`` is used, containing the
748 current *base* of the given topic branch -- this is basically a merge of
749 all the branches the topic branch depends on; it is updated during ``tg
750 update`` and then merged to the topic branch, and it is the base of a
751 patch generated from the topic branch by ``tg patch``.
753 All the metadata is tracked within the source tree and history of the
754 topic branch itself, in ``.top*`` files; these files are kept isolated
755 within the topic branches during TopGit-controlled merges and are of
756 course omitted during ``tg patch``. The state of these files in base
757 commits is undefined; look at them only in the topic branches
758 themselves. Currently, two files are defined:
761 Contains the description of the topic branch in a
762 mail-like format, plus the author information, whatever
763 Cc headers you choose or the post-three-dashes message.
764 When mailing out your patch, basically only a few extra
765 mail headers are inserted and then the patch itself is
766 appended. Thus, as your patches evolve, you can record
767 nuances like whether the particular patch should have
768 To-list / Cc-maintainer or vice-versa and similar
769 nuances, if your project is into that. ``From`` is
770 prefilled from your current ``GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT``; other
771 headers can be prefilled from various optional
772 ``topgit.*`` git config options.
775 Contains the one-per-line list of branches this branch
776 depends on, pre-seeded by `tg create`. A (continuously
777 updated) merge of these branches will be the *base* of
780 IMPORTANT: DO NOT EDIT ``.topdeps`` MANUALLY!!! If you do so, you need to
781 know exactly what are you doing, since this file must stay in sync with
782 the Git history information, otherwise very bad things will happen.
784 TopGit also automagically installs a bunch of custom commit-related
785 hooks that will verify whether you are committing the ``.top*`` files in a
786 sane state. It will add the hooks to separate files within the ``hooks/``
787 subdirectory, and merely insert calls to them to the appropriate hooks
788 and make them executable (but will make sure the original hook's code is
789 not called if the hook was not executable beforehand).
791 Another automagically installed piece is a ``.git/info/attributes``
792 specifier for an ``ours`` merge strategy for the files ``.topmsg`` and
793 ``.topdeps``, and the (intuitive) ``ours`` merge strategy definition in
800 There are two remaining issues with accessing topic branches in remote
803 (i) Referring to remote topic branches from your local repository
804 (ii) Developing some of the remote topic branches locally
806 There are two somewhat contradictory design considerations here:
808 (a) Hacking on multiple independent TopGit remotes in a single
810 (b) Having a self-contained topic system in local refs space
812 To us, (a) does not appear to be very convincing, while (b) is quite
813 desirable for ``git-log topic`` etc. working, and increased conceptual
816 Thus, we choose to instantiate all the topic branches of given remote
817 locally; this is performed by ``tg remote --populate``. ``tg update``
818 will also check if a branch can be updated from its corresponding remote
819 branch. The logic needs to be somewhat involved if we are to "do the
820 right thing". First, we update the base, handling the remote branch as
821 if it was the first dependency; thus, conflict resolutions made in the
822 remote branch will be carried over to our local base automagically.
823 Then, the base is merged into the remote branch and the result is merged
824 to the local branch -- again, to carry over remote conflict resolutions.
825 In the future, this order might be adjustable on a per-update basis, in
826 case local changes happen to be diverging more than the remote ones.
828 All commands by default refer to the remote that ``tg remote --populate``
829 was called on the last time (stored in the ``topgit.remote`` git
830 configuration variable). You can manually run any command with a
831 different base remote by passing ``-r REMOTE`` *before* the subcommand
838 The following references are useful to understand the development of
839 topgit and its subcommands.
842 http://lists-archives.org/git/688698-add-list-and-rm-sub-commands-to-tg-depend.html
848 The following software understands TopGit branches:
850 * `magit <http://magit.github.io/>`_ -- a git mode for emacs
852 IMPORTANT: Magit requires its topgit mode to be enabled first, as
853 described in its documentation, in the "Activating extensions"
854 subsection. If this is not done, it will not push TopGit branches
855 correctly, so it's important to enable it even if you plan to mostly use
856 TopGit from the command line.