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Git

Below are various issues about Git.

Git Resources

• Git SVN Crash Course - Used Subversion, being forced to use Git? Read this!
• Git and RepoMan
• SvnX: Git GUI for the Mac

Converting from SVN to Git

Sadly, I'm drinking the Koolaid and converting various repos from svn to git. Do I think this is a good idea? No. The main reason to the conversion is that no other version control system has stepped up, so git is the successor to svn. My hope is that some day, someone will convert the repos from git to version-control-d'jour.

• https://john.albin.net/git/convert-subversion-to-git - Good summary of what is necessary

Notes are below.

git svn clone fails with "error: git-svn died of signal 11"

• git svn clone fails with "error: git-svn died of signal 11" (stackoverflow)

This is fixed in libsvn-perl 1.9.4, so I updated to Ubuntu 17.x

git svn show-ignore fails with "command returned error: 1"

See git svn show-ignore gives error "command returned error: 1" (stackoverflow)

Here, the solution was to run

  git svn show-ignore --id=origin/trunk > .gitignore

"error: refname refs/heads/trunk not found"

My workaround:

  git branch -m origin/trunk master

Then

Summary of what worked to convert from git to svn

As per 9.2 Git and Other Systems - Migrating to Git create authors-transform.txt

Then update authors-transform.txt

Run git svn in an empty directory and tar up the results so that it is easy to retry the git commands.

If necessary, create a clean copy of the output of git svn, then run the commands from 9.2 Git and Other Systems - Migrating to Git

Git under Windows

http://kylecordes.com/2010/git-gui-client-windows - 2010 overview of git clients

Installation of Git and cloning a repository

1. Go to http://git-scm.com/downloads and download and install the Windows client. In July, 2012, I downloaded https://github.com/downloads/msysgit/git/Git-1.7.11-preview20120620.exe For a tutorial, see http://nathanj.github.com/gitguide/tour.html
2. Start up the Git GUI with: Start -> All Programs -> Git -> Git GUI
3. In the Git GUI window, click on Help -> Show SSH Key -> Generate Key
4. Click on Copy to Clipboard
5. Go to the Redmine site and paste the contents in the ssh key window
6. In Windows, go back to Git GUI and click on clone existing repository
   1. For source location, enter git-tess@tessellation.cs.berkeley.edu:fcrp-whitepaper.git
   2. For target directory, choose any directory
   3. Click on Clone

Committing a change

1. Use an editor to make a trivial change to a file. A possible LaTeX tool to try is TexWorks
2. In the Git GUI window, note that the change will show up in "Unstaged Changes". If it does not try Commit -> Rescan
3. To commit your changes to your local repository, click on the file in Unstaged Changes and then Commit -> Stage to Commit
4. Enter a message in the Commit Message window and press Commit.
5. To push your changes to the master, press the Push button.

Pulling changes from the server

In Git GUI, I think you need to do a fetch and then a merge, see http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/No-quot-pull-quot-in-git-gui-td1121058.html

In Git GUI, I did:

1. Remote -> Fetch From -> origin
2. Merge -> Local Merge.

There is probably a way to do this using Git GUI, see http://nathanj.github.com/gitguide/tour.html

However, I find it easier to start up Git Bash and run commands by hand:

Criticisms of Git

Git is all the rage because it is "better than Subversion". Git was created to be fix shortcomings in Subversion (SVN), in a similar manner to how SVN was created to fix shortcomings in CVS. Yet, like SVN has problems not present in CVS, Git has problems not present in SVN.

This is a common pattern, see ant vs. make.

When will we stop reinventing the wheel and having the new version have more problems than the old version.

Most users could care less about what version control system they use. They want to use the same commands to get the same results without worrying about whether the version control system is SCCS, RCS, CVS, SVN, Git or Git's as yet unborn replacement. Fortunately, tools like Eclipse and Emacs insulate the user from poorly designed and/or implemented version control tools, but do we really need to keep banging our heads against the wall.

Distributed version control is a good thing, why mess it up with trivial differences between the predecessors?

Trivial incompatibilities between Git and SVN

Sadly, Git has trivial differences from SVN.

Trivial differences in similar tools cause people to waste time.

If git is better than svn, then why does git have problems that svn does not have?

The pager

Why does git insist on using a pager? Other Unix tools don't do this. I run my shells inside emacs so I don't need a pager. Under git 1.7.10 under RHEL 5.8, inside Emacs, I get:

Yes, I know I can Prevent git from using a pager with

1. Why do I have to do this on every machine that I use for every account?
2. If git is going to use a pager, then it should sense that the terminal is not fully functional and then not use a pager
3. If git is going to use a pager and the pager is not working, then it should tell the user how to turn off the pager.

Is this really all that hard?

git commit does not work with absolute paths

Under git 1.7.9.4 under Mac OS X 10.3, why can't I use an absolute path like I can with svn?

If this works:

Then shouldn't this work, too?

Why doesn't "git co" work?

svn co is short for svn checkout. Should this just work in git? Why should the user learn yet another syntax for the same result?

Why do I need to use -a with git commit -m "message"

Under Subversion, when I run svn commit -m "message", then all the changes in the current directory and the directories below are committed.

Sadly, git requires me to use the -a argument?

Why be different than cvs and svn here?

Mac OS X Git Problems

git clone returns "error: Protocol https not supported or disabled in libcurl while accessing"

Under Mac OS X 10.7.4, git 1.7.7.3 was failing:

Kostadin pointed out that the problem was with curl:

For a potential solution, see: http://naleid.com/blog/2009/03/16/enabling-https-support-in-curl-installed-through-macports-on-osx/

3/19/2013: Upgrading port seems to help with the above:

However, this error occurred:

This helped:

Under Linux, I had to do

because /usr/bin/curl was getting the libcurl from matlab

Curl Under Jenkins

See Jenkins#CurlUnderJenkins

Linux Git Problems

RHEL: error setting certificate verify locations

The solution was as root to do:

   ln -s /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3160909/how-do-i-deal-with-certificates-using-curl-while-trying-to-access-an-https-url for useful information, but not the precise answer.

Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display

Under RHEL 5.8, I can't run git unless I have an X11 connection?

One solution is to invoke unset SSH_ASKPASS:

git clone returns "error: The requested URL returned error: 401 while accessing"

Try adding the username to the url:

Mac OS X: Git fails with git-remote-https requires version 8.0.0 or later, but libcurl.4.dylib provides version 7.0.0

Solution: