Hi, On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote: > Linus Torvalds wrote: > >>> About "checkouts", i.e. working directories with repository elsewhere: > >>> you can use GIT_DIR environmental variable or "git --git-dir" option, > >>> or symlinks, and if Nguyen Thai Ngoc D proposal to have .gitdir/.git > >>> "symref"-like file to point to repository passes, we can use that. > >> > >> It sounds like the .gitdir/.git proposal would give Git "checkouts", by > >> our meaning of the term. > > > > Well, in the git world, it's really just one shared repository that has > > separate branch-namespaces, and separate working trees (aka "checkouts"). > > So yes, it probably matches what bazaar would call a checkout. > > > > Almost nobody seems to actually use it that way in git - it's mostly more > > efficient to just have five different branches in the same working tree, > > and switch between them. When you switch between branches in git, git only > > rewrites the part of your working tree that actually changed, so switching > > is extremely efficient even with a large repo. > > Unless you have branch(es) with totally different contents, like git.git > 'todo' branch. But I _do_ work with it! I just don't need to "checkout" it! Example: git -p cat-file -p todo:TODO (How about making git-cat be a short cuut to "git -p cat-file -p"?) > > So there is seldom any real need or reason to actually have multiple > > checkouts. But it certainly _works_. > > But without .git being either symlink, or .git/.gitdir "symref"-link, > you have to remember what to ser GIT_DIR to, or parameter for --git-dir > option. You'd just use alternates for that. But as Linus mentioned in another email, you mostly can use the _same_ working directory. If you want to work on another branch, which is not all that different from the current branch (say, you have a bug fix branch on top of an upstream branch), you just _switch_ to it. Git recognizes those files which are changed, and updates only these. Therefore, if you have something like a Makefile system to build the project, you actually save (compile) time as compared to the multiple-checkout scenario. I use this system a lot, since I maintain a few bugfixes for a few projects until the bugfixes are applied upstream. BTW the multiple-branches-in-one-working-directory workflow was propagated by Jeff a long time ago, and it really changed my way of working. Thanks, Jeff! Ciao, Dscho - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html