On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 10:18:31AM +0200, Crni Gorac wrote: > I'm working on a large closed-source project. For one of clients, I > had to create a library that consists of some directories from > original project, and even within these directories, not all files are > used for the library. On top of that, I've added some files specific > for this library, in separate directories and in the library repo > top-level directory. Most of files from original project are > unchanged, and for some, I had to make some small changes (mostly to > exclude dependencies on other stuff from the original project). We're > now switching to Git from another VCS, and I'm wondering is there any > way to automatically "link" those pieces from the main project repo > into my library repo? So far, I would run update in the main project > repo, check is any of files that I'm using in library changed, and if > so, then I would either copy the new version of given file into the > library (if given file unchanged for the library), or merge updates > manually (if given file is one of these files that are slightly > changed for the library), and then commit all these changes in the > library repo. None of changes in the library will ever go back into > the main project, i.e. the flow of updates is uni-directional here. > So, any support in Git to automate the procedure of updating the > library with the changes made for corresponding files in the main > project? If I understand your case correctly, this is usually solved with a "vendor" branch type of workflow. E.g.: # Import the first version of the library verbatim onto the branch # "upstream". git init git checkout -b upstream tar xf the-lib-1.0.tar git add . git commit -m 'import version 1.0' # Now make your changes on master. git checkout -b master upstream hack hack hack git commit -m 'fixed some bits' # Time passes. You want to import 1.1. Do this on the upstream branch, # where we know that we can overwrite the state completely (since we # are replacing upstream's 1.0 with their 1.1). git checkout upstream rm -rf * tar xf the-lib-1.1.tar git add -A git commit -m 'import version 1.1' # And now you can merge 1.1 into your master branch. The git history # you've created reflects two lines of development: upstream's and # your custom changes. So merging will never "undo" the changes you've # made (but you'll probably see conflicts if you deleted a file and # upstream changed it, for example). git checkout master git merge upstream Note that your "master" branch doesn't have to be _just_ the changes to upstream. It can actually be your whole project, complete with changes to the upstream library. -Peff
