I have several non-bare Git repositories. There is one central Git repository (or at least handled as being the central repo; this might change) but this is also non-bare (because I want to have a checkout on the same machine). My history is mostly linear and I'm the only person who will ever do changes on this repository, so it is unlikely that conflicts will happen. (It is my documents directory.)
Pushing directly into another non-bare repository doesn't work if I use the master
branch everywhere. There is receive.denyCurrentBranch
which would allow this but it doesn't really help me because (1) it doesn't update the local checkout and (2) I'm afraid of what happens in case there is a conflict.
There are a few related/similar questions here:
- simplest way to sync a repository with a checked out branch: Suggests setting up an Bash alias (basically
ssh git pull
).
- making pushes to non-bare repositories safe: Using a
post-update
hook (with a strong advise to avoid it). Or rather push it to some specific unique remote ref and let the destination later handle the merging.
I want a solution which is 100% safe. So I think using a post-update
hook is no option for me.
I think my use case is not actual that uncommon so I wonder if there are some common solutions for this. Are there?
I think, what I want is:
- Push local
master
to some remote special ref (like merge-request-xy
) (i.e. like git push origin master:merge-request
?).
- On the remote, if we can fast-forward and the working copy is clean, fast-forward, update the working copy and delete the ref (basically
git merge merge-request && git branch -D merge-request
?).
Would that be safe or a good way to do it?
The solution you have suggested is safe as long as you (1) push to a different branch than master
, like merge-request
and (2) do the checks about merging. For the second part, fast-forwarding if everything is in the clear on the remote, you can use a post-update
hook like this one:
#!/bin/sh
# check args to see if merge-request was pushed,
# and do nothing if it wasn't
if ! $(echo $@ | grep -q 'merge-request');
then
echo "merge-request not updated"
exit 0
fi
# cancel if master is not checked out
THIS_BRANCH=$(git branch --no-color | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/\1/')
if [ "$THIS_BRANCH" != "master" ];
then
echo "master not checked out, not merging"
exit 1
fi
# cancel if working dir is dirty
if [ $(git status --porcelain | wc -l) != 0 ];
then
echo "working dir is dirty, not merging"
exit 1
fi
# try to merge, but only do so if the merge is fast-forward
# try to delete, but only do so if the merge succeeded
git merge --ff-only merge-request && git branch -d merge-request
Make sure to chmod +x
your post-update script. When you push, output of this hook will be shown in the console prefaced by "remote:"
In order to push from master
into origin/merge-request
on the remote, you can either set the push
var in your remote config in .git/config
(which lets you call git push origin
:
[remote "origin"]
push = +refs/heads/*:refs/merge-request/*
or you can set a repo-specific alias:
[alias]
push = push origin master:merge-request
The dangerous part of pushing to a non-bare repository with a post-update
hook is if the remote working copy is unclean and/or you can't do a fast-forward. If you're going to put those pre-conditions on your solution, you might as well go with the better-tested post-update
hook with a checkout option.
If you can't guarantee those preconditions, you're going to have to resolve any conflicts from the other end anyway. In that case, you again might as well go with the post-update
hook option, but make sure to do the checkout without a --force
so if there is a conflict you don't lose local changes.
I still don't see why so many people seem averse to having a bare and non-bare repo on the same machine. I have a bare repo at home that I push to from both home and work. When I start working at either location, I pull into my non-bare repository. It takes 2 seconds, and I'm always in the best physical location to resolve any potential conflicts.