NAME¶

git-dpm - debian packages in git manager

SYNOPSIS¶

git-dpm --help git-dpm [ options ] command [ per-command-options and -arguments ]

DESCRIPTION¶

Git-dpm is a tool to handle a debian source package in a git repository. Each project contains three branches, a debian branch ( master/whatever), a patched branch ( patched/patched- whatever) and an upstream branch ( upstream/ upstream-whatever) and git-dpm helps you store the information in there so you have your changes exportable as quilt series. Git-dpm will guess the other two branches based on the branch it sees. (Most commands act based on the current HEAD, i.e. what branch you have currently checked out, though some as e.g. status allows an optional argument instead). So for example, if you are in branch master, git-dpm assumes the corresponding upstream branch is called upstream. If you are in branch upstream-something, it assumes the debian branch is called something. Note that most commands may switch to another branch automatically, partly because it is easier to implement that way and hopefully so one does not need to switch branches manually so often.

SHORT EXPLANATION OF THE BRANCHES¶

the upstream branch (upstream|upstream-whatever)

This branch contains the upstream sources. It contents need to be equal enough to the contents in your upstream tarball.

 

the patched branch (patched|patched-whatever)

This branch contains your patches to the upstream source. Every commit will be stored as a single patch in the resulting package.

 

Most of the time it will not exist as branch known to git, but only as some point in the history of the debian branch and possibly as tag for published versions. Git-dpm will create it when needed and remove the branch when no longer needed.

 

 

To help git generate a linear patch series, this should ideal be a linear chain of commits, whose description are helpful for other people.

 

As this branch is regulary rebased, you should not publish it.

 

the debian branch (master|whatever)

This is the primary branch.

 

This branch contains the debian/ directory and has the patched branch merged in.

 

Every change not in debian/, .git* or deleting files must be done in the patched branch.

 

EXAMPLES¶

Let's start with some examples:

Checking out a project

First get the master branch:
git clone URL

 

Then create upstream branch and see if the .orig.tar is ready:
git-dpm prepare

 

Create the patched branch and check it out:
git-dpm checkout-patched

 

Do some changes, apply some patches, commit them..
...
git commit

 

If your modification fixes a previous change (and that is not the last commit, otherwise you could have used --amend), you might want to squash those two commits into one, so use:
git rebase -i upstream

 

Then you want to get those changes into the debian branch and the new patch files created (which you can do using git-dpm update-patches), but you most likely want to also document what you did in the changelog, so all in one step:
git-dpm dch -- -i

 

Perhaps change something in the debian packaging:
...
git commit -a

 

Then push the whole thing back:
git push

 

Switching to a new upstream version

Get a new .orig.tar file. Either upgrade your upstream branch to the contents of that file and call git-dpm new-upstream ../ new-stuff.orig.tar.gz or tell git-dpm to import and record it:
git-dpm import-new-upstream --rebase ../new-stuff.orig.tar.gz

 

This will rebase the patched branch to the new upstream branch, perhaps you will need to resolve some conflicts:
vim ...
git add resolved files
git rebase --continue

 

After rebase is run (with some luck even in the first try):
git-dpm dch -- -v newupstream-1 "new upstream version"

 

You could have also done the last step in three by:
git-dpm update-patches
dch -- -v newupstream-1 "new upstream version"
git commit --amend -a

 

Do other debian/ changes:
...
git commit -a

 

Then push the whole thing back:
git push

 

Creating a new project

Create an upstream (or upstream-whatever) branch containing the contents of your orig.tar file:
tar -xvf example_0.orig.tar.gz
cd example-0
git init
git add .
git commit -m "import example_0.orig.tar.gz"
git checkout -b upstream-unstable

 

You might want to use pristine tar to store your tar:
pristine-tar commit ../example_0.orig.tar.gz upstream-unstable

 

Then let git-dpm know what tarball your upstream branch belongs to:
git-dpm init ../example_0.orig.tar.gz

 

Note that since you were in upstream-unstable in this example, in the last example git-dpm assumed you want your debian branch called unstable and not master, so after the command returned you are in the newly created unstable branch.

 

Do the rest of the packaging:
vim debian/control debian/rules
dch --create --package example -v 0-1
git add debian/control debian/rules debian/changelog
git commit -m "initial packaging"

 

Then add some patches:
git-dpm checkout-patched
vim ...
git commit -a
git-dpm dch "fix ... (Closes: num)"

 

The git-dpm checkout-patched created a temporary branch patched-unstable (as you were in a branch called unstable. If you had called it with HEAD being a branch master, it would have been patched) to which you added commits. Then the git-dpm update-patches implied by git-dpm dch merged those changes into unstable, deleted the temporary branch and created new debian/patches/ files.

 

Then build your package:
git-dpm status &&
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc -I".git*"

 

Now take a look what happened, perhaps you want to add some files to .gitignore (in the unstable branch), or remove some files from the unstable branch becaus your clean rule removes them.

 

Continue the last few steps until the package is finished. Then push your package:
git-dpm tag
git push --tags target unstable:unstable pristine-tar:pristine-tar

 

GLOBAL OPTIONS¶

--debug

Give verbose output what git-dpm is doing. Mostly only useful for debugging or when preparing an bug report.

 

--debug-git-calls

Output git invocations to stderr. (For more complicated debugging cases).

 

--allow-changes-in-debian-branch

Ignore upstream changes in your debian branch. This will either discard them if merge-patched is called by come command or them being ignored elsewhere.

 

COMMANDS¶

init [options] tarfile [upstream-commit [ preapplied-commit [patched-commit]]]

Create a new project.

 

The first argument is an upstream tarball.

 

You also need to have the contents of that file and the files given with --component unpackaged as some branch or commit in your git repository (or similar enough so dpkg-source will not know the difference). This will be stored in the upstream branch (called upstream or upstream- whatever). If the second argument is non-existing or empty, that branch must already exist, otherwise that branch will be initialized with what that second argument. (It's your responsiblity that the contents match. git-dpm does not know what your clean rule does, so cannot check (and does not even try to warn yet)).

 

You can already have an debian branch (called master or whatever). If it does not exist, it will exist afterwards. Otherwise it can contain a debian/patches/series file, which git-dpm will import.

 

The third argument can be a descendant of your upstream branch, that contains the changes of your debian branch before any patches are applied (Most people prefer to have none and lintian warns, but if you have some, commit/cherry pick them in a new branch/detached head on top of your upstream branch and name them here). Without --patches-applied, your debian branch may not have any upstream changes compared to this commit (or if it is not given, the upstream branch).

 

If there is no fourth argument, git-dpm will apply possible patches in your debian branch on top of the third argument or upstream. You can also do so yourself and give that as fourth argument.

 

The contents of this commit/branch given in the fourth commit or created by applying patches on top of the third/your upstream branch is then merged into your debian branch and remembered as patched branch.

 

Options:

prepare

Make sure upstream branch and upstream orig.tar ball are there and up to date. (Best called after a clone or a pull).

 

status [branch]

 

Check the status of the current project (or of the project belonging to the argument branch if that is given). Returns with non-zero exit code if something to do is detected.

 

checkout-patched

 

Checkout the patched branch ( patched|patched-whatever) after making sure it exists and is one recorded in the debian/.git-dpm file.

 

If the patched branch references an old state (i.e. one that is already ancestor of the current debian branch), it is changed to the recorded current one.

 

Otherwise you can reset it to the last recorded state with the --force option.

 

update-patches [options] [branch-name]

 

After calling merge-patched-into-debian if necessary, update the contents of debian/patches to the current state of the patched branch.

 

Also record in debian/.git-dpm which state of the patched branch the patches directory belongs to.

 

If a branch-name is given, that branch is processed. Otherwise the name is derived from the currently checked out branch as usual.

 

Options:

dch [options] -- dch-options

After calling update-patches if necessary, run devscripts' dch with the specified options and then do a git commit with a commit message containing changes to the debian/changelog file.

 

Options:

merge-patched-into-debian [options] [branch-name]

Usually update-patches runs this for you if deemed necessary.

 

This command is the core of git-dpm, but you usually do not call it directly. It is called by update-patches and things calling update-patches like dch when necessary.

 

It replaces all files (with only the exceptions described below) in the current debian branch ( master|whatever) with those found in the patched branch ( patched|patched-whatever).

 

Only the debian directory and files in the root directory starting with ".git" are kept from the debian branch (so .gitignore, .gitattributes, ... will stay). And all files that were found in the last recorded patched branch and deleted in the current debian branch will also be deleted in the new one.

 

Additionally the debian/.git-dpm file will be updated so the current patched branch is recorded and is marked as belonging to the last recorded upstream branch.

 

If there is no branch-name given on the command line the base name of the branches to operate on is computed from the currently checked out branch as usual. Otherwise this argument is used.

 

Options:

import-new-upstream [options] .orig.tar

Import the contents of the given tarfile (as with import-tar) and record this branch (as with new-upstream).

 

This is roughly equivalent to:
git-dpm import-tar -p upstream filename
git checkout -b upstream
git-dpm new-upstream filename

 

import-tar [options] .tar-file

Create a new commit containing the contents of the given file. The commit will not have any parents, unless you give -p options.

 

new-upstream [options] .orig.tar [commit]

 

If you changed the upstream branch ( upstream|upstream-whatever), git-dpm needs to know which tarball this branch now corresponds to and you have to rebase your patched branch ( patched|patched-whatever) to the new upstream branch.

 

If there is a second argument, this command first replaces your upstream branch with the specified commit.

 

Then the new upstream branch is recorded in your debian branch's debian/.git-dpm file.

 

If you specified --rebase-patched (or short --rebase), git-dpm rebase-patched will be called to rebase your patched branch on top of the new upstream branch.

 

After this (and if the branch then looks like what you want), you still need to call git-dpm merge-patched-into-debian (or directly git-dpm update-patches).

 

WARNING to avoid any misunderstandings: You have to change the upstream branch before using this command. It's your responsibility to ensure the contents of the tarball match those of the upstream branch.

 

rebase-patched

Try to rebase your current patched branch ( patched|patched-whatever) to your current current upstream branch ( upstream|upstream-whatever).

 

If those branches do not yet exist as git branches, they are (re)created from the information recorded in debian/.git-dpm first.

 

This is only a convenience wrapper around git rebase that first tries to determine what exactly is to rebase. If there are any conflicts, git rebase will ask you to resolv them and tell rebase to continue.

 

After this is finished (and if the branch then looks like what you want), you still need merge-patched-into-debian (or directly update-patches).

 

tag [ options ] [ version ]

Add tags to the uptream, patched and debian branches. If no version is given, it is taken from debian/changelog.

 

Options:

ref-tag [ options ] commit [ version ]

Like tag, but create tags for commit, i.e. commit will get the debian tag and the other tags are placed where the debian/.git-dpm file of that commit points to.

 

So it is mostly equivalent to:
git checkout -b temp commit
git-dpm tag [options] [version]
git checkout previous-head
git branch -D temp

 

Options like tag.

 

apply-patch [ options... ] [ filename ]

Switch to the patched branch (assuming it is up to date, use checkout-patched first to make sure or get an warning), and apply the patch given as argument or from stdin.

 

cherry-pick [ options... ] commit

Recreate the patched branch and cherry-pick the given commit. Then merge that back into the debian branch and update the debian/patches directory (i.e. mostly equivalent to checkout-patched, git's cherry-pick, and update-patches).

 

import-dsc

Import a debian source package from a .dsc file. This can be used to create a new project or to import a source package into an existing project.

 

While a possible old state of a project is recorded as parent commit, the state of the old debian branch is not taken into account. Especially all file deletions and .gitignore files and the like need to be reapplied/readded afterwards. (Assumption is that new source package versions from outside might change stuff significantly, so old information might more likely be outdated. And reapplying it is easier then reverting such changes.)

 

First step is importing the .orig.tar file and possible .orig-component.tar files. You can either specify a branch to use. Otherwise import-dsc will look if the previous state of this project already has the needed file so the old upstream branch can be reused. If there is non, the file will be imported as a new commit, by default with a possible previous upstream branch as parent.

 

Then import-dsc will try to import the source package in the state as dpkg-source -x would create it. (That is applying the .diff and making debian/rules executeable for 1.0 format packages and replacing the debian directory with the contents of a .debian.tar and applying possible debian/patches/series for 3.0 format packages). This is later referred to as verbatim import.

 

If it is a 1.0 source format package, import-dsc then looks for a set of supported patch systems and tries to apply those patches. Those are then merged with the verbatim state into the new debian branch.

 

Then a debian/.git-dpm file is created and a possible old state of the project added as parent.

 

Note that dpkg-source is not used to extract packages, but they are extracted manually. Especially git-apply is used instead of patch. While this generally works (and git-dpm has some magic to work around some of git-apply's shortcomings), unclean patches might sometimes need a -C0 option and then in same cases be applied at different positions than where patch would apply them.

 

General options:

record-dsc [options] commit .dsc-file

Store a pristine .dsc file in a dscs branch after storing the files it contains using pristine-tar.

 

The first argument is an tag or commit storing the git-dpm project in the state belonging to the .dsc file and the second argument is the .dsc file itself. The files it references are expected in the same directory as the file itself (if they are needed).

 

Some checks are done to make sure the file and its contents are named problerly and match the commit in question, but only cursory to avoid obvious mistakes (for example only the version is checked, but .debian.tar is not unpacked to check the files are really the same, for example).

 

Options:

the debian/.git-dpm file¶

You should not need to know about the contents if this file except for debuging git-dpm. The file contains 8 lines, but future version may contain more. The first line is hint what this file is about and ignored. Then there are 4 git commit ids for the recorded states: The following 3 lines are the filename, the sha1 checksum and the size of the origtarball belonging to the recorded upstream branch.

SHORTCUTS¶

Most commands also have shorter aliases, to avoid typing:
update-patches: up, u-p, ci
prepare: prep
checkout-patched: co, c-p
rebase-patched: r-p
new-upstream-branch: new-upstream, n-u
apply-patch: a-p
import-tar: i-t
import-new-upstream: i-n-u, inu
cherry-pick: c-p

BRANCHES¶

the upstream branch (upstream|upstream-whatever)

This branch contains the upstream sources. It contents need to be equal enough to the contents in your upstream tarball.

 

Equal enough means that dpkg-source should see no difference between your patched tree and and original tarball unpackaged, the patched applied and debian/rules clean run. Usually it is easiest to just store the verbatim contents of your orig tarball here. Then you can also use it for pristine tar.

 

This branch may contain a debian/ subdirectory, which will usually be just ignored.

 

You can either publish that branch or make it only implicitly visible via the debian/.git-dpm file in the debian branch.

 

While it usually makes sense that newer upstream branches contain older ones, this is not needed. You should be able to switch from one created yourself or by some foreign-vcs importing tool generated one to an native upstream branch or vice versa without problems. Note that since the debian branch has the patched branch as ancestor and the patched branch the upstream branch, your upstream branches are part of the history of your debian branch. Which has the advantage that you can recreate the exact state of your branches from your history directly (like git checkout -b oldstate myoldtagorshaofdebianbranchcommit ; git-dpm prepare ; git checkout unstable-oldstate) but the disadvantage that to remove those histories from your repository you have to do some manual work.

 

the patched branch (patched|patched-whatever)

This branch contains your patches to the upstream source. (which of course means it is based on your upstream branch).

 

Every commit will be stored as a single patch in the resulting package.

 

To help git generate a linear patch series, this should ideal be a linear chain of commits, whose description are helpful for other people.

 

As this branch is regulary rebased, you should not publish it. Instead you can recreate this branch using git-dpm checkout-patched using the information stored in debian/.git-dpm.

 

You are not allowed to change the contents of the debian/ subdirectory in this branch. Renaming files or deleting files usuall causes unecesary large patches.

 

the debian branch (master|whatever)

This is the primary branch.

 

This branch contains the debian/ directory and has the patched branch merged in.

 

Every change not in debian/, .git* or deleting files must be done in the patched branch.

 

alternative branch names

You can specify alternate branch names for upstream and patched branches of a specific debian branch, or force a branch to be a debian branch that would normaly be considered e.g. upstream branch of another branch by adding dpmUpstreamBranch and dpmPatchedBranch configure items for the debian branch in question (you need both, only one is treated as error).

 

The following example is a no-op for all practical purposes:
git config branch.master.dpmUpstreamBranch upstream
git config branch.master.dpmPatchedBranch patched

 

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright © 2009,2010 Bernhard R. Link This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

REPORTING BUGS AND ISSUES¶

You can report bugs or feature suggestions to git-dpm-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org or tome. Please send questions to git-dpm-user@lists.alioth.debian.org or to me at brlink@debian.org.