PERLGIT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLGIT(1) #
PERLGIT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLGIT(1)
NNAAMMEE #
perlgit - Detailed information about git and the Perl repository
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #
This document provides details on using git to develop Perl. If you are
just interested in working on a quick patch, see perlhack first. This
document is intended for people who are regular contributors to Perl,
including those with write access to the git repository.
CCLLOONNIINNGG TTHHEE RREEPPOOSSIITTOORRYY #
All of Perl's source code is kept centrally in a Git repository at
_g_i_t_h_u_b_._c_o_m.
You can make a read-only clone of the repository by running:
% git clone git@github.com:Perl/perl5.git perl
If you cannot use that for firewall reasons, you can also clone via http:
% git clone https://github.com/Perl/perl5.git perl
WWOORRKKIINNGG WWIITTHH TTHHEE RREEPPOOSSIITTOORRYY #
Once you have changed into the repository directory, you can inspect it.
After a clone the repository will contain a single local branch, which
will be the current branch as well, as indicated by the asterisk.
% git branch
* blead
Using the -a switch to "branch" will also show the remote tracking
branches in the repository:
% git branch -a
* blead
origin/HEAD
origin/blead
...
The branches that begin with "origin" correspond to the "git remote" that
you cloned from (which is named "origin"). Each branch on the remote will
be exactly tracked by these branches. You should NEVER do work on these
remote tracking branches. You only ever do work in a local branch. Local
branches can be configured to automerge (on pull) from a designated
remote tracking branch. This is the case with the default branch "blead"
which will be configured to merge from the remote tracking branch
"origin/blead".
You can see recent commits:
% git log
And pull new changes from the repository, and update your local
repository (must be clean first)
% git pull
Assuming we are on the branch "blead" immediately after a pull, this
command would be more or less equivalent to:
% git fetch
% git merge origin/blead
In fact if you want to update your local repository without touching your
working directory you do:
% git fetch
And if you want to update your remote-tracking branches for all defined
remotes simultaneously you can do
% git remote update
Neither of these last two commands will update your working directory,
however both will update the remote-tracking branches in your repository.
To make a local branch of a remote branch:
% git checkout -b maint-5.10 origin/maint-5.10
To switch back to blead:
% git checkout blead
FFiinnddiinngg oouutt yyoouurr ssttaattuuss The most common git command you will use will probably be
% git status
This command will produce as output a description of the current state of
the repository, including modified files and unignored untracked files,
and in addition it will show things like what files have been staged for
the next commit, and usually some useful information about how to change
things. For instance the following:
% git status
On branch blead
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/blead' by 1 commit.
Changes to be committed:
(use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
modified: pod/perlgit.pod
Changes not staged for commit:
(use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working
directory)
modified: pod/perlgit.pod
Untracked files:
(use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
deliberate.untracked
This shows that there were changes to this document staged for commit,
and that there were further changes in the working directory not yet
staged. It also shows that there was an untracked file in the working
directory, and as you can see shows how to change all of this. It also
shows that there is one commit on the working branch "blead" which has
not been pushed to the "origin" remote yet. NNOOTTEE: This output is also
what you see as a template if you do not provide a message to "git
commit".
PPaattcchh wwoorrkkffllooww First, please read perlhack for details on hacking the Perl core. That document covers many details on how to create a good patch.
If you already have a Perl repository, you should ensure that you're on
the _b_l_e_a_d branch, and your repository is up to date:
% git checkout blead
% git pull
It's preferable to patch against the latest blead version, since this is
where new development occurs for all changes other than critical bug
fixes. Critical bug fix patches should be made against the relevant maint
branches, or should be submitted with a note indicating all the branches
where the fix should be applied.
Now that we have everything up to date, we need to create a temporary new
branch for these changes and switch into it:
% git checkout -b orange
which is the short form of
% git branch orange
% git checkout orange
Creating a topic branch makes it easier for the maintainers to rebase or
merge back into the master blead for a more linear history. If you don't
work on a topic branch the maintainer has to manually cherry pick your
changes onto blead before they can be applied.
That'll get you scolded on perl5-porters, so don't do that. Be Awesome.
Then make your changes. For example, if Leon Brocard changes his name to
Orange Brocard, we should change his name in the AUTHORS file:
% perl -pi -e 's{Leon Brocard}{Orange Brocard}' AUTHORS
You can see what files are changed:
% git status
On branch orange
Changes to be committed:
(use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
modified: AUTHORS
And you can see the changes:
% git diff
diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
booksearchexclude = true +++ b/AUTHORS @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie Laszlo Molnar laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se Leif Huhn leif@hale.dkstat.com Len Johnson lenjay@ibm.net -Leon Brocard acme@astray.com +Orange Brocard acme@astray.com Les Peters lpeters@aol.net Lesley Binks lesley.binks@gmail.com Lincoln D. Stein lstein@cshl.org
Now commit your change locally:
% git commit -a -m 'Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard'
Created commit 6196c1d: Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
The "-a" option is used to include all files that git tracks that you
have changed. If at this time, you only want to commit some of the files
you have worked on, you can omit the "-a" and use the command
"git add _F_I_L_E_ _._._." before doing the commit. "git add --interactive"
allows you to even just commit portions of files instead of all the
changes in them.
The "-m" option is used to specify the commit message. If you omit it,
git will open a text editor for you to compose the message interactively.
This is useful when the changes are more complex than the sample given
here, and, depending on the editor, to know that the first line of the
commit message doesn't exceed the 50 character legal maximum. See "Commit
message" in perlhack for more information about what makes a good commit
message.
Once you've finished writing your commit message and exited your editor,
git will write your change to disk and tell you something like this:
Created commit daf8e63: explain git status and stuff about remotes
1 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
If you re-run "git status", you should see something like this:
% git status
On branch orange
Untracked files:
(use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
deliberate.untracked
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to
track)
When in doubt, before you do anything else, check your status and read it
carefully, many questions are answered directly by the git status output.
You can examine your last commit with:
% git show HEAD
and if you are not happy with either the description or the patch itself
you can fix it up by editing the files once more and then issue:
% git commit -a --amend
Now, create a fork on GitHub to push your branch to, and add it as a
remote if you haven't already, as described in the GitHub documentation
at <https://help.github.com/en/articles/working-with-forks>:
% git remote add fork git@github.com:MyUser/perl5.git
And push the branch to your fork:
% git push -u fork orange
You should now submit a Pull Request (PR) on GitHub from the new branch
to blead. For more information, see the GitHub documentation at
<https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-pull-request-from-a-fork>.
You can also send patch files to perl5-porters@perl.org
<mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org> directly if the patch is not ready to be
applied, but intended for discussion.
To create a patch file for all your local changes:
% git format-patch -M blead..
0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
Or for a lot of changes, e.g. from a topic branch:
% git format-patch --stdout -M blead.. > topic-branch-changes.patch
If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
% git checkout blead
% git branch -d orange
error: The branch 'orange' is not an ancestor of your current HEAD.
If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D orange'.
% git branch -D orange
Deleted branch orange.
AA nnoottee oonn ddeerriivveedd ffiilleess Be aware that many files in the distribution are derivative–avoid patching them, because git won’t see the changes to them, and the build process will overwrite them. Patch the originals instead. Most utilities (like perldoc) are in this category, i.e. patch _u_t_i_l_s_/_p_e_r_l_d_o_c_._P_L rather than _u_t_i_l_s_/_p_e_r_l_d_o_c. Similarly, don’t create patches for files under _$_s_r_c___r_o_o_t_/_e_x_t from their copies found in _$_i_n_s_t_a_l_l___r_o_o_t_/_l_i_b. If you are unsure about the proper location of a file that may have gotten copied while building the source distribution, consult the _M_A_N_I_F_E_S_T.
CClleeaanniinngg aa wwoorrkkiinngg ddiirreeccttoorryy The command “git clean” can with varying arguments be used as a replacement for “make clean”.
To reset your working directory to a pristine condition you can do:
% git clean -dxf
However, be aware this will delete ALL untracked content. You can use
% git clean -Xf
to remove all ignored untracked files, such as build and test byproduct,
but leave any manually created files alone.
If you only want to cancel some uncommitted edits, you can use "git
checkout" and give it a list of files to be reverted, or "git checkout
-f" to revert them all.
If you want to cancel one or several commits, you can use "git reset".
BBiisseeccttiinngg “git” provides a built-in way to determine which commit should be blamed for introducing a given bug. “git bisect” performs a binary search of history to locate the first failing commit. It is fast, powerful and flexible, but requires some setup and to automate the process an auxiliary shell script is needed.
The core provides a wrapper program, _P_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_b_i_s_e_c_t_._p_l, which attempts to
simplify as much as possible, making bisecting as simple as running a
Perl one-liner. For example, if you want to know when this became an
error:
perl -e 'my $a := 2'
you simply run this:
.../Porting/bisect.pl -e 'my $a := 2;'
Using _P_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_b_i_s_e_c_t_._p_l, with one command (and no other files) it's easy
to find out
• Which commit caused this example code to break?
• Which commit caused this example code to start working?
• Which commit added the first file to match this regex?
• Which commit removed the last file to match this regex?
usually without needing to know which versions of perl to use as start
and end revisions, as _P_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_b_i_s_e_c_t_._p_l automatically searches to find
the earliest stable version for which the test case passes. Run
"Porting/bisect.pl --help" for the full documentation, including how to
set the "Configure" and build time options.
If you require more flexibility than _P_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_b_i_s_e_c_t_._p_l has to offer,
you'll need to run "git bisect" yourself. It's most useful to use "git
bisect run" to automate the building and testing of perl revisions. For
this you'll need a shell script for "git" to call to test a particular
revision. An example script is _P_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_b_i_s_e_c_t_-_e_x_a_m_p_l_e_._s_h, which you
should copy oouuttssiiddee of the repository, as the bisect process will reset
the state to a clean checkout as it runs. The instructions below assume
that you copied it as _~_/_r_u_n and then edited it as appropriate.
You first enter in bisect mode with:
% git bisect start
For example, if the bug is present on "HEAD" but wasn't in 5.10.0, "git"
will learn about this when you enter:
% git bisect bad
% git bisect good perl-5.10.0
Bisecting: 853 revisions left to test after this
This results in checking out the median commit between "HEAD" and
"perl-5.10.0". You can then run the bisecting process with:
% git bisect run ~/run
When the first bad commit is isolated, "git bisect" will tell you so:
ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5 is first bad commit
commit ca4cfd28534303b82a216cfe83a1c80cbc3b9dc5
Author: Dave Mitchell <davem@fdisolutions.com>
Date: Sat Feb 9 14:56:23 2008 +0000
[perl #49472] Attributes + Unknown Error
...
bisect run success
You can peek into the bisecting process with "git bisect log" and "git
bisect visualize". "git bisect reset" will get you out of bisect mode.
Please note that the first "good" state must be an ancestor of the first
"bad" state. If you want to search for the commit that _s_o_l_v_e_d some bug,
you have to negate your test case (i.e. exit with 1 if OK and 0 if not)
and still mark the lower bound as "good" and the upper as "bad". The
"first bad commit" has then to be understood as the "first commit where
the bug is solved".
"git help bisect" has much more information on how you can tweak your
binary searches.
Following bisection you may wish to configure, build and test perl at
commits identified by the bisection process. Sometimes, particularly
with older perls, "make" may fail during this process. In this case you
may be able to patch the source code at the older commit point. To do
so, please follow the suggestions provided in "Building perl at older
commits" in perlhack.
TTooppiicc bbrraanncchheess aanndd rreewwrriittiinngg hhiissttoorryy Individual committers should create topic branches under yyoouurrnnaammee/ssoommee__ddeessccrriippttiivvee__nnaammee:
% branch="$yourname/$some_descriptive_name"
% git checkout -b $branch
... do local edits, commits etc ...
% git push origin -u $branch
Should you be stuck with an ancient version of git (prior to 1.7), then
"git push" will not have the "-u" switch, and you have to replace the
last step with the following sequence:
% git push origin $branch:refs/heads/$branch
% git config branch.$branch.remote origin
% git config branch.$branch.merge refs/heads/$branch
If you want to make changes to someone else's topic branch, you should
check with its creator before making any change to it.
You might sometimes find that the original author has edited the branch's
history. There are lots of good reasons for this. Sometimes, an author
might simply be rebasing the branch onto a newer source point.
Sometimes, an author might have found an error in an early commit which
they wanted to fix before merging the branch to blead.
Currently the master repository is configured to forbid non-fast-forward
merges. This means that the branches within can not be rebased and pushed
as a single step.
The only way you will ever be allowed to rebase or modify the history of
a pushed branch is to delete it and push it as a new branch under the
same name. Please think carefully about doing this. It may be better to
sequentially rename your branches so that it is easier for others working
with you to cherry-pick their local changes onto the new version. (XXX:
needs explanation).
If you want to rebase a personal topic branch, you will have to delete
your existing topic branch and push as a new version of it. You can do
this via the following formula (see the explanation about "refspec"'s in
the git push documentation for details) after you have rebased your
branch:
# first rebase
% git checkout $user/$topic
% git fetch
% git rebase origin/blead
# then "delete-and-push"
% git push origin :$user/$topic
% git push origin $user/$topic
NNOOTTEE:: it is forbidden at the repository level to delete any of the
"primary" branches. That is any branch matching "m!^(blead|maint|perl)!".
Any attempt to do so will result in git producing an error like this:
% git push origin :blead
*** It is forbidden to delete blead/maint branches in this repository
error: hooks/update exited with error code 1
error: hook declined to update refs/heads/blead
To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl
! [remote rejected] blead (hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl'
As a matter of policy we do nnoott edit the history of the blead and maint-*
branches. If a typo (or worse) sneaks into a commit to blead or maint-*,
we'll fix it in another commit. The only types of updates allowed on
these branches are "fast-forwards", where all history is preserved.
Annotated tags in the canonical perl.git repository will never be deleted
or modified. Think long and hard about whether you want to push a local
tag to perl.git before doing so. (Pushing simple tags is not allowed.)
GGrraaffttss The perl history contains one mistake which was not caught in the conversion: a merge was recorded in the history between blead and maint-5.10 where no merge actually occurred. Due to the nature of git, this is now impossible to fix in the public repository. You can remove this mis-merge locally by adding the following line to your “.git/info/grafts” file:
296f12bbbbaa06de9be9d09d3dcf8f4528898a49 434946e0cb7a32589ed92d18008aaa1d88515930
It is particularly important to have this graft line if any bisecting is
done in the area of the "merge" in question.
WWRRIITTEE AACCCCEESSSS TTOO TTHHEE GGIITT RREEPPOOSSIITTOORRYY #
Once you have write access, you will need to modify the URL for the
origin remote to enable pushing. Edit _._g_i_t_/_c_o_n_f_i_g with the ggiitt--ccoonnffiigg(1)
command:
% git config remote.origin.url git@github.com:Perl/perl5.git
You can also set up your user name and e-mail address. Most people do
this once globally in their _~_/_._g_i_t_c_o_n_f_i_g by doing something like:
% git config --global user.name "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason"
% git config --global user.email avarab@gmail.com
However, if you'd like to override that just for perl, execute something
like the following in _p_e_r_l:
% git config user.email avar@cpan.org
It is also possible to keep "origin" as a git remote, and add a new
remote for ssh access:
% git remote add camel git@github.com:Perl/perl5.git
This allows you to update your local repository by pulling from "origin",
which is faster and doesn't require you to authenticate, and to push your
changes back with the "camel" remote:
% git fetch camel
% git push camel
The "fetch" command just updates the "camel" refs, as the objects
themselves should have been fetched when pulling from "origin".
WWoorrkkiinngg wwiitthh GGiitthhuubb ppuullll rreeqquueessttss Pull requests typically originate from outside of the “Perl/perl.git” repository, so if you want to test or work with it locally a vanilla “git fetch” from the “Perl/perl5.git” repository won’t fetch it.
However Github does provide a mechanism to fetch a pull request to a
local branch. They are available on Github remotes under "pull/", so you
can use "git fetch pull/_P_R_I_D/head:_l_o_c_a_l_n_a_m_e" to make a local copy. eg.
to fetch pull request 9999 to the local branch "local-branch-name" run:
git fetch origin pull/9999/head:local-branch-name
and then:
git checkout local-branch-name
Note: this branch is not rebased on "blead", so instead of the checkout
above, you might want:
git rebase origin/blead local-branch-name
which rebases "local-branch-name" on "blead", and checks it out.
Alternatively you can configure the remote to fetch all pull requests as
remote-tracking branches. To do this edit the remote in _._g_i_t_/_c_o_n_f_i_g, for
example if your github remote is "origin" you'd have:
[remote "origin"]
url = git@github.com:/Perl/perl5.git
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
Add a line to map the remote pull request branches to remote-tracking
branches:
[remote "origin"]
url = git@github.com:/Perl/perl5.git
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pull/*
and then do a fetch as normal:
git fetch origin
This will create a remote-tracking branch for every pull request,
including closed requests.
To remove those remote-tracking branches, remove the line added above and
prune:
git fetch -p origin # or git remote prune origin
AAcccceeppttiinngg aa ppaattcchh If you have received a patch file generated using the above section, you should try out the patch.
First we need to create a temporary new branch for these changes and
switch into it:
% git checkout -b experimental
Patches that were formatted by "git format-patch" are applied with "git
am":
% git am 0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
Applying Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
Note that some UNIX mail systems can mess with text attachments
containing 'From '. This will fix them up:
% perl -pi -e's/^>From /From /' \
0001-Rename-Leon-Brocard-to-Orange-Brocard.patch
If just a raw diff is provided, it is also possible use this two-step
process:
% git apply bugfix.diff
% git commit -a -m "Some fixing" \
--author="That Guy <that.guy@internets.com>"
Now we can inspect the change:
% git show HEAD
commit b1b3dab48344cff6de4087efca3dbd63548ab5e2
Author: Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>
Date: Fri Dec 19 17:02:59 2008 +0000
Rename Leon Brocard to Orange Brocard
diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 293dd70..722c93e 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
booksearchexclude = true +++ b/AUTHORS @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@ Lars Hecking lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie Laszlo Molnar laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se Leif Huhn leif@hale.dkstat.com Len Johnson lenjay@ibm.net -Leon Brocard acme@astray.com +Orange Brocard acme@astray.com Les Peters lpeters@aol.net Lesley Binks lesley.binks@gmail.com Lincoln D. Stein lstein@cshl.org
If you are a committer to Perl and you think the patch is good, you can
then merge it into blead then push it out to the main repository:
% git checkout blead
% git merge experimental
% git push origin blead
If you want to delete your temporary branch, you may do so with:
% git checkout blead
% git branch -d experimental
error: The branch 'experimental' is not an ancestor of your current
HEAD. If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D
experimental'.
% git branch -D experimental
Deleted branch experimental.
CCoommmmiittttiinngg ttoo bblleeaadd The ‘blead’ branch will become the next production release of Perl.
Before pushing _a_n_y local change to blead, it's incredibly important that
you do a few things, lest other committers come after you with pitchforks
and torches:
• Make sure you have a good commit message. See "Commit message" in
perlhack for details.
• Run the test suite. You might not think that one typo fix would break
a test file. You'd be wrong. Here's an example of where not running
the suite caused problems. A patch was submitted that added a couple
of tests to an existing _._t. It couldn't possibly affect anything
else, so no need to test beyond the single affected _._t, right? But,
the submitter's email address had changed since the last of their
submissions, and this caused other tests to fail. Running the test
target given in the next item would have caught this problem.
• If you don't run the full test suite, at least "make test_porting".
This will run basic sanity checks. To see which sanity checks, have a
look in _t_/_p_o_r_t_i_n_g.
• If you make any changes that affect miniperl or core routines that
have different code paths for miniperl, be sure to run "make
minitest". This will catch problems that even the full test suite
will not catch because it runs a subset of tests under miniperl
rather than perl.
OOnn mmeerrggiinngg aanndd rreebbaassiinngg Simple, one-off commits pushed to the ‘blead’ branch should be simple commits that apply cleanly. In other words, you should make sure your work is committed against the current position of blead, so that you can push back to the master repository without merging.
Sometimes, blead will move while you're building or testing your changes.
When this happens, your push will be rejected with a message like this:
To ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
! [rejected] blead -> blead (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were
rejected Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing
again. See the 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help'
for details.
When this happens, you can just _r_e_b_a_s_e your work against the new position
of blead, like this (assuming your remote for the master repository is
"p5p"):
% git fetch p5p
% git rebase p5p/blead
You will see your commits being re-applied, and you will then be able to
push safely. More information about rebasing can be found in the
documentation for the ggiitt--rreebbaassee(1) command.
For larger sets of commits that only make sense together, or that would
benefit from a summary of the set's purpose, you should use a merge
commit. You should perform your work on a topic branch, which you should
regularly rebase against blead to ensure that your code is not broken by
blead moving. When you have finished your work, please perform a final
rebase and test. Linear history is something that gets lost with every
commit on blead, but a final rebase makes the history linear again,
making it easier for future maintainers to see what has happened. Rebase
as follows (assuming your work was on the branch "committer/somework"):
% git checkout committer/somework
% git rebase blead
Then you can merge it into master like this:
% git checkout blead
% git merge --no-ff --no-commit committer/somework
% git commit -a
The switches above deserve explanation. "--no-ff" indicates that even if
all your work can be applied linearly against blead, a merge commit
should still be prepared. This ensures that all your work will be shown
as a side branch, with all its commits merged into the mainstream blead
by the merge commit.
"--no-commit" means that the merge commit will be _p_r_e_p_a_r_e_d but not
_c_o_m_m_i_t_t_e_d. The commit is then actually performed when you run the next
command, which will bring up your editor to describe the commit. Without
"--no-commit", the commit would be made with nearly no useful message,
which would greatly diminish the value of the merge commit as a
placeholder for the work's description.
When describing the merge commit, explain the purpose of the branch, and
keep in mind that this description will probably be used by the eventual
release engineer when reviewing the next perldelta document.
CCoommmmiittttiinngg ttoo mmaaiinntteennaannccee vveerrssiioonnss Maintenance versions should only be altered to add critical bug fixes, see perlpolicy.
To commit to a maintenance version of perl, you need to create a local
tracking branch:
% git checkout --track -b maint-5.005 origin/maint-5.005
This creates a local branch named "maint-5.005", which tracks the remote
branch "origin/maint-5.005". Then you can pull, commit, merge and push as
before.
You can also cherry-pick commits from blead and another branch, by using
the "git cherry-pick" command. It is recommended to use the --xx option to
"git cherry-pick" in order to record the SHA1 of the original commit in
the new commit message.
Before pushing any change to a maint version, make sure you've satisfied
the steps in "Committing to blead" above.
UUssiinngg aa ssmmookkee--mmee bbrraanncchh ttoo tteesstt cchhaannggeess Sometimes a change affects code paths which you cannot test on the OSes which are directly available to you and it would be wise to have users on other OSes test the change before you commit it to blead.
Fortunately, there is a way to get your change smoke-tested on various
OSes: push it to a "smoke-me" branch and wait for certain automated
smoke-testers to report the results from their OSes. A "smoke-me" branch
is identified by the branch name: specifically, as seen on github.com it
must be a local branch whose first name component is precisely
"smoke-me".
The procedure for doing this is roughly as follows (using the example of
tonyc's smoke-me branch called win32stat):
First, make a local branch and switch to it:
% git checkout -b win32stat
Make some changes, build perl and test your changes, then commit them to
your local branch. Then push your local branch to a remote smoke-me
branch:
% git push origin win32stat:smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat
Now you can switch back to blead locally:
% git checkout blead
and continue working on other things while you wait a day or two, keeping
an eye on the results reported for your smoke-me branch at
<http://perl.develop-help.com/?b=smoke-me/tonyc/win32state>.
If all is well then update your blead branch:
% git pull
then checkout your smoke-me branch once more and rebase it on blead:
% git rebase blead win32stat
Now switch back to blead and merge your smoke-me branch into it:
% git checkout blead
% git merge win32stat
As described earlier, if there are many changes on your smoke-me branch
then you should prepare a merge commit in which to give an overview of
those changes by using the following command instead of the last command
above:
% git merge win32stat --no-ff --no-commit
You should now build perl and test your (merged) changes one last time
(ideally run the whole test suite, but failing that at least run the
_t_/_p_o_r_t_i_n_g_/_*_._t tests) before pushing your changes as usual:
% git push origin blead
Finally, you should then delete the remote smoke-me branch:
% git push origin :smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat
(which is likely to produce a warning like this, which can be ignored:
remote: fatal: ambiguous argument
'refs/heads/smoke-me/tonyc/win32stat':
unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
remote: Use '--' to separate paths from revisions
) and then delete your local branch:
% git branch -d win32stat
perl v5.36.3 2023-02-15 PERLGIT(1)