On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:39:04PM +0100, Michael Weise wrote: > Hi Folks, > > last week I tried fossil for the first time - I was able to understand > the basic concepts. Then I created my first helloworld_test repository > and even migrated an existing git repository to fossil - all that within > 30 minutes, thanks to great documentation for the first steps. > > I was really impressed by the simplicity and beauty of fossil to that > point. > > > Now I've spent about 1 hour to find out how to check out a branch in > fossil. This might sound ridiculous, but I'm rather new to version > control systems and here is what happened: > > I copied the former git repository to the server and cloned it. > Then I opened it with fossil open. Only one file ".gitignore" showed up > in my local directory. > > Then I tried the "fossil branch" command. > > $ fossil branch > gcc_port > * trunk > > Ok, all the files are in another branch. But how do I activate it? > > "fossil help branch" tells me it's used to "Run various subcommands to > manage branches of the open repository", but actually only the command > "new" and "list" are supported. > I read the word "management" and expected it to include manipulation > - but actually the branch command only creates and lists branches. > > Then I thought, there must be some command to checkout the repository. > "fossil help" lists 43 commands, but not the "checkout" command. > (I overlooked the hint about the -a, because I expected the "checkout" > command to be one of the 10 most important commands). So I concluded > the checkout command must have another name or the mechanism in fossil > might be different from git. Then I started to search the documentation: > > http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/permutedindex.wiki > http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/branching.wiki > http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/quickstart.wiki > http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/fiveminutes.wiki > > The branching website mentiones checkouts ... but no command. > > Then I used my favourite search engine to find the mailing list > archives and *there* I found "fossil co" mentioned as an alias for > "fossil checkout". > > > There might be other users who try out fossil as their first VCS and > the "fossil checkout" command is mentioned *nowhere* in the > documentation for beginners. I think it should be *at least* > > * In the quick start guide, section "checking out a local tree" > http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/quickstart.wiki > > * In the list of commands displayed by "fossil help"
Personally, I never use checkout/co command since I work with fossil (since 2010). I notice very early on the update/up usage that I can change version using the up command. ======================================================================== $ fossil help up Usage: fossil update ?OPTIONS? ?VERSION? ?FILES...? <snip> The VERSION argument can be a specific version or tag or branch name. If the VERSION argument is omitted, then the leaf of the subtree that begins at the current version is used, if there is only a single leaf. VERSION can also be "current" to select the leaf of the current version or "latest" to select the most recent check-in. If one or more FILES are listed after the VERSION then only the named files are candidates to be updated. If FILES is omitted, all files in the current checkout are subject to be updated. Using a directory name for one of the FILES arguments is the same as using every subdirectory and file beneath that directory. <snip> ======================================================================== It was pretty natural to me since before to use fossil I was using CVS, where "cvs co" ---> "fossil open" and "cvs up" ---> "fossil up". Regards -- Martin G. _______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
