Using Git to contribute to Redmine¶

Redmine's source tree is stored in Subversion, and everything eventually feeds into there. Some who are comfortable using Git prefer to use it for its branching and merging features, and because you don't need to have SVN commit access to make commits.

If you were looking for Subversion instructions, there are on the download page.

Initialization¶

If you don't yet have Git, see the 5-minute Git Guide in the links below for download information. You'll want a Git version of at least 1.5.x.

To start out, run these commands:

git clone git://git.complete.org/branches/redmine-integration
cd redmine-integration
git config --add remote.origin.fetch +refs/remotes/svn/*:refs/remotes/svn/*
git fetch

Exploration¶

You can see all the branches that Git obtained for you:

git branch -r | less

You'll see output like this. (Many lines omitted here)

  origin/HEAD
  origin/fb-bug-259-git
  origin/fb-bug-261-issue-redirect
  origin/fb-bug-641-context-done
  svn/git
  svn/issue_relations
  svn/mailing_lists
  svn/tags/0.6.3
  svn/tags/0.6.3@1011
  svn/time
  svn/trunk
  svn/wiki

The "origin" branches are being maintained in Git (no corresponding Subversion branch). The svn branches are identical copies of the same branch in the Redmine Subversion repository.

You'll base your work off these branches.

Starting Your Feature¶

With git, branches are cheap and merges are easy, so you'll usually want to start a new branch for each feature you work on. A single branch will probably correspond to a single issue in Redmine when you submit the patch.

You'll want to base your patch on svn trunk. So you'll set up a branch like so:

$ git branch my-feature svn/trunk
Branch my-feature set up to track remote branch refs/remotes/svn/trunk.
$ git checkout my-feature

The first line created a branch named my-feature, which will be based on svn/trunk. The second command checks out that branch, which means that your working copy is switched to it, and any commits you make will be posted to that branch.

Note that the act of committing doesn't sent any patches to anyone else; as Git is distributed, commits are recorded locally only until you're ready to push them upstream.

You can run git branch to see what branch you're on -- it'll have an asterisk next to it, like this:

$ git branch
  master
* my-feature

Working on your feature¶

Now that you have made your branch, it's time start work.

Here are some commands you may want to use:

task	command
Commit outstanding changes	git commit -a
Add a new file to the repo	git add filename
Remove a file from the repo and working directory	git rm filename
Rename a file in repo and working directory	git mv oldname newname
View history	git log
Get help	git commandname --help

Note that git command is the same as git-command. You can use man git-command to see the manpage for any Git command.

Merging with trunk¶

If you are working with your feature for awhile, you may find that Subversion has updated. Ideally you will make your eventual diff work with the latest trunk revision, so you'll want to make your patch work with that. To update your patches to apply on top of the latest trunk, do this:

git fetch git rebase svn/trunk

Submitting your Patch¶

When you're done working on your patch, make sure you have committed it to Git. Then you can generate diffs.

You can generate one big diff, that includes all the changes you have made on the branch, even if they were made in multiple commits. Run this:

git diff svn/trunk..HEAD > /tmp/feature.diff

That means "calculate the difference between the trunk and the latest commit on this branch, and store it as a diff in /tmp/feature.diff". Then go to the redmine.org, create an issue, and attach /tmp/feature.diff to it.

If you wish to submit one patch for each commit, just run git format-patch svn/trunk. You'll get one file generated for each commit, complete with the commit log. Then you'll want to attach each of these at redmine.org.