2 About Git write access:
3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5 Before everything else, you should know how to use GIT properly.
6 Luckily Git comes with excellent documentation.
11 shows you the available subcommands,
16 shows information about the subcommand <command>.
18 The most comprehensive manual is the website Git Reference
22 For more information about the Git project, visit
26 Consult these resources whenever you have problems, they are quite exhaustive.
28 You do not need a special username or password.
29 All you need is to provide a ssh public key to the Git server admin.
31 What follows now is a basic introduction to Git and some FFmpeg-specific
32 guidelines. Read it at least once, if you are granted commit privileges to the
33 FFmpeg project you are expected to be familiar with these rules.
42 Most distributions have a git package, if not
43 You can get git from http://git-scm.com/
46 1. Cloning the source tree:
48 git clone git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg <target>
50 This will put the FFmpeg sources into the directory <target>.
52 git clone git@source.ffmpeg.org:ffmpeg <target>
54 This will put the FFmpeg sources into the directory <target> and let
55 you push back your changes to the remote repository.
58 2. Updating the source tree to the latest revision:
62 pulls in the latest changes from the tracked branch. The tracked branch
63 can be remote. By default the master branch tracks the branch master in
65 Caveat: Since merge commits are forbidden at least for the initial
66 months of git --ff-only or --rebase (see below) are recommended.
67 --ff-only will fail and not create merge commits if your branch
68 has diverged (has a different history) from the tracked branch.
70 2.a Rebasing your local branches:
74 fetches the changes from the main repository and replays your local commits
75 over it. This is required to keep all your local changes at the top of
76 FFmpeg's master tree. The master tree will reject pushes with merge commits.
79 3. Adding/removing files/directories:
81 git add [-A] <filename/dirname>
82 git rm [-r] <filename/dirname>
84 GIT needs to get notified of all changes you make to your working
85 directory that makes files appear or disappear.
86 Line moves across files are automatically tracked.
89 4. Showing modifications:
91 git diff <filename(s)>
93 will show all local modifications in your working directory as unified diff.
96 5. Inspecting the changelog:
100 You may also use the graphical tools like gitview or gitk or the web
101 interface available at http://source.ffmpeg.org
103 6. Checking source tree status:
107 detects all the changes you made and lists what actions will be taken in case
108 of a commit (additions, modifications, deletions, etc.).
115 to double check your changes before committing them to avoid trouble later
116 on. All experienced developers do this on each and every commit, no matter
118 Every one of them has been saved from looking like a fool by this many times.
119 It's very easy for stray debug output or cosmetic modifications to slip in,
120 please avoid problems through this extra level of scrutiny.
122 For cosmetics-only commits you should get (almost) empty output from
124 git diff -w -b <filename(s)>
126 Also check the output of
130 to make sure you don't have untracked files or deletions.
132 git add [-i|-p|-A] <filenames/dirnames>
134 Make sure you have told git your name and email address, e.g. by running
135 git config --global user.name "My Name"
136 git config --global user.email my@email.invalid
137 (--global to set the global configuration for all your git checkouts).
139 Git will select the changes to the files for commit. Optionally you can use
140 the interactive or the patch mode to select hunk by hunk what should be
145 Git will commit the selected changes to your current local branch.
147 You will be prompted for a log message in an editor, which is either
148 set in your personal configuration file through
150 git config core.editor
152 or set by one of the following environment variables:
153 GIT_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR.
155 Log messages should be concise but descriptive. Explain why you made a change,
156 what you did will be obvious from the changes themselves most of the time.
157 Saying just "bug fix" or "10l" is bad. Remember that people of varying skill
158 levels look at and educate themselves while reading through your code. Don't
159 include filenames in log messages, Git provides that information.
161 Possibly make the commit message have a terse, descriptive first line, an
162 empty line and then a full description. The first line will be used to name
163 the patch by git format-patch.
166 8. Renaming/moving/copying files or contents of files:
168 Git automatically tracks such changes, making those normal commits.
170 mv/cp path/file otherpath/otherfile
176 Do not move, rename or copy files of which you are not the maintainer without
177 discussing it on the mailing list first!
179 9. Reverting broken commits
183 git revert will generate a revert commit. This will not make the faulty
184 commit disappear from the history.
188 git reset will uncommit the changes till <commit> rewriting the current
193 allows to amend the last commit details quickly.
195 git rebase -i origin/master
197 will replay local commits over the main repository allowing to edit,
198 merge or remove some of them in the process.
200 Note that the reset, commit --amend and rebase rewrite history, so you
201 should use them ONLY on your local or topic branches.
203 The main repository will reject those changes.
205 10. Preparing a patchset.
207 git format-patch <commit> [-o directory]
209 will generate a set of patches for each commit between <commit> and
212 git format-patch origin/master
214 will generate patches for all commits on current branch which are not
216 A useful shortcut is also
220 which will generate patches from last n commits.
221 By default the patches are created in the current directory.
223 11. Sending patches for review
225 git send-email <commit list|directory>
227 will send the patches created by git format-patch or directly generates
228 them. All the email fields can be configured in the global/local
229 configuration or overridden by command line.
230 Note that this tool must often be installed separately (e.g. git-email
231 package on Debian-based distros).
233 12. Pushing changes to remote trees
237 Will push the changes to the default remote (origin).
238 Git will prevent you from pushing changes if the local and remote trees are
239 out of sync. Refer to 2 and 2.a to sync the local tree.
241 git remote add <name> <url>
243 Will add additional remote with a name reference, it is useful if you want
244 to push your local branch for review on a remote host.
246 git push <remote> <refspec>
248 Will push the changes to the remote repository. Omitting refspec makes git
249 push update all the remote branches matching the local ones.
251 13. Finding a specific svn revision
253 Since version 1.7.1 git supports ':/foo' syntax for specifying commits
254 based on a regular expression. see man gitrevisions
256 git show :/'as revision 23456'
258 will show the svn changeset r23456. With older git versions searching in
259 the git log output is the easiest option (especially if a pager with
260 search capabilities is used).
261 This commit can be checked out with
263 git checkout -b svn_23456 :/'as revision 23456'
265 or for git < 1.7.1 with
267 git checkout -b svn_23456 $SHA1
269 where $SHA1 is the commit SHA1 from the 'git log' output.
272 Contact the project admins <root at ffmpeg dot org> if you have technical
273 problems with the GIT server.