Re: improvements to checks for core.notesRef / GIT_NOTES_REF / --ref
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 02:32:33AM +0200, Johan Herland wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:40 PM, Adam Spiers wrote: [snipped] > > IMHO the more similar the merge's user experience is to a standard > > merge, the better, since that would minimise the number of merging > > workflows the user needs to learn. > > > > On this theme, I think ideally rebase should be supported too, and > > IMHO the general discussion about rebase vs. merge is mostly about the > shape of the resulting history. When it comes to notes, I have yet to > see a use case where anybody really cares about the shape of the notes > history, and hence I don't yet see how rebase would be useful for > notes. In fact, it rather seems some people are more interested in > storing their notes trees without any history at all (ISTR a > discussion regarding the notes-cache feature, where we did NOT want to > keep earlier versions of the cache alive). That's a fair point; lack of rebase is certainly not a showstopper. In contrast, in our use case, a total lack of history could be quite annoying. > > I also have to manually update the fake tracking "branch": > > > > git update-ref refs/notes/$remote/$GIT_NOTES_REF > > refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF > > > > # or if I want to make really sure this only happens if the push worked > > git fetch $remote > > refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF:refs/notes/$remote/$GIT_NOTES_REF > > > > That's pretty ugly. Couldn't we instead just reuse the existing > > mechanisms? > > > > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* > > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/notes/*:refs/note-remotes/origin/* > > The remote refs namespace idea aims to solve this by providing refspecs like > > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/heads/* > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/tags/*:refs/remotes/origin/tags/* > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/notes/*:refs/remotes/origin/notes/* > remote.origin.fetch=+refs/replace/*:refs/remotes/origin/replace/* > etc. > > I'm currently working on some patches to make git work well in repos > with those kinds of refspecs. I see that as the first step on the way > to properly supporting remote ref namespaces. > > > branch.notes/commits.remote=origin > > branch.notes/commits.merge=refs/notes/commits > > This looks like an natural extension of the branch upstream mechanism > for notes. Personally, I'd rather have it look more like this: > > [notes "commits"] > remote = origin > merge = refs/notes/commits > > or, in your notation: > > notes.commits.remote=origin > notes.commits.merge=refs/notes/commits Ahah yes, that's nicer. Thanks for the reply! -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: improvements to checks for core.notesRef / GIT_NOTES_REF / --ref
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:40 PM, Adam Spiers wrote: > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:13:32AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: >> Adam Spiers writes: >> > static struct notes_tree *init_notes_check(const char *subcommand) >> > ... >> > Can we relax this to "refs/", to allow better isolation of namespaces >> > for remote notes? Also, the check is applied for GIT_NOTES_REF and >> > core.notesRef, but not for values passed via --ref. Therefore I would >> > propose that init_notes_check() is not only relaxed but also moved >> > from builtin/notes.c to notes.c, so that it can be consumed by >> > default_notes_ref(). Thoughts? >> >> Such a policy decision at the application level should be done in >> builtin/notes.c, and not notes.c, I think. It is OK to have a >> sharable check routine in notes.c and help different notes >> applications to implement their own sanity checking, though. "git >> notes" that operates only on local notes might restrict its >> operation to refs/notes, while "git notes-merge" may allow it to >> read from other hierarchies but still write only into refs/notes, >> for example. > > OK, makes sense. I initially added this check with the intention of making it _really_ hard for users to accidentally mix up notes trees and "real" trees. Obviously, it also makes it unnecessarily hard for people that want to share notes (e.g. you). According to the Great Refs Namespace Debate, I would probably want to limit note refs to refs/notes/* and refs/remotes/$remote/notes/*, but since that debate I've regrettably neglected the whole issue, and the current implementation was left as it currently is... Re-thinking the issue now, I see how it might be more useful to remove the check altogether, rather than unintentionally holding it "hostage" while we wait for the remote refs namespaces to materialize. Otherwise, I agree with Junio's assessment that this code conceptually belongs in builtin/notes.c and not notes.c. >> I am not sure if it is a good idea in general to have a separate >> remotes-notes/ hierarchy in the first place, though. Wouldn't the >> notes be less like branches (private view) and more like tags >> (common world view)? > > I didn't have anything to do with the design, but the existence of > certain "git notes" subcommands (in particular append, edit, and > merge) gave me the distinct impression that users are expected to edit > notes simultaneously, and handle any merge conflicts which may arise. > These actions are modelled by commits to refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF, > which as a result is used as a sort of inferior 3rd-class branch. In > contrast, tags do not seem to be mutable (in the accumulative sense, > at least), and have no history (not even in the reflog, AFAICS). I definitely agree with Adam here. Notes are definitely to be considered mutable (in the general case), and hence are more like branches than tags. Especially when notes are shared among repos, one must assume that they will also be edited in multiple repos, and must therefore be merged properly (or at least have the option of doing so) when shared from one repo to another. After all, that's the reason why "git notes merge" exists at all... > As stated earlier in the thread, my particular use case is to use > notes to mark commits which should be excluded from a long list of > commits which "git cherry" says need to be upstreamed. In our > project, there are many commits for which it does not make sense to > upstream them, and even for the ones which it does, cherry-picking can > sometimes result in a different patch-id due to changed context. In > both of these cases, git notes is a great mechanism for blacklisting > these commits from the upstreaming process, and I've already written > "git icing" which wraps "git cherry" to support that. However, the > substantial size of the upstreaming work means that it needs to be > done by multiple people across multiple clones of the repository, > hence the need for branch-like tracking of notes. > >> > Also, are there any plans in the future for making "git notes merge" >> > provide an index, so that a proper 3-way merge with ancestor can be >> > done using git mergetool? >> >> Are we committed that all notes leaves must be blobs (I do not >> personally mind it)? > > No idea - perhaps someone else can comment on this. Sounds reasonable > to me too. AFAICR, we've left that decision somewhat open. The notes code will in general work with both notes and trees, although there are some functions that will obviously only work with blobs: - Any notes command that lets you edit the note in a text editor (add/append/edit, IINM) will obviously only produce blobs. - Certain notes merge strategies, such as "union" and "cat_sort_uniq" will only work on blobs. The default "manual" strategy is also unable to checkout non-blobs in the notes merge worktree. - Displaying notes as part of the log (or any other call to notes.c:format_note()) only works on blobs. So, althou
Re: improvements to checks for core.notesRef / GIT_NOTES_REF / --ref
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:13:32AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Adam Spiers writes: > > > static struct notes_tree *init_notes_check(const char *subcommand) > > ... > > Can we relax this to "refs/", to allow better isolation of namespaces > > for remote notes? Also, the check is applied for GIT_NOTES_REF and > > core.notesRef, but not for values passed via --ref. Therefore I would > > propose that init_notes_check() is not only relaxed but also moved > > from builtin/notes.c to notes.c, so that it can be consumed by > > default_notes_ref(). Thoughts? > > Such a policy decision at the application level should be done in > builtin/notes.c, and not notes.c, I think. It is OK to have a > sharable check routine in notes.c and help different notes > applications to implement their own sanity checking, though. "git > notes" that operates only on local notes might restrict its > operation to refs/notes, while "git notes-merge" may allow it to > read from other hierarchies but still write only into refs/notes, > for example. OK, makes sense. > I am not sure if it is a good idea in general to have a separate > remotes-notes/ hierarchy in the first place, though. Wouldn't the > notes be less like branches (private view) and more like tags > (common world view)? I didn't have anything to do with the design, but the existence of certain "git notes" subcommands (in particular append, edit, and merge) gave me the distinct impression that users are expected to edit notes simultaneously, and handle any merge conflicts which may arise. These actions are modelled by commits to refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF, which as a result is used as a sort of inferior 3rd-class branch. In contrast, tags do not seem to be mutable (in the accumulative sense, at least), and have no history (not even in the reflog, AFAICS). As stated earlier in the thread, my particular use case is to use notes to mark commits which should be excluded from a long list of commits which "git cherry" says need to be upstreamed. In our project, there are many commits for which it does not make sense to upstream them, and even for the ones which it does, cherry-picking can sometimes result in a different patch-id due to changed context. In both of these cases, git notes is a great mechanism for blacklisting these commits from the upstreaming process, and I've already written "git icing" which wraps "git cherry" to support that. However, the substantial size of the upstreaming work means that it needs to be done by multiple people across multiple clones of the repository, hence the need for branch-like tracking of notes. > > Also, are there any plans in the future for making "git notes merge" > > provide an index, so that a proper 3-way merge with ancestor can be > > done using git mergetool? > > Are we committed that all notes leaves must be blobs (I do not > personally mind it)? No idea - perhaps someone else can comment on this. Sounds reasonable to me too. > I do think we need a way to call a custom low level 3-way merge > driver once we identify which notes blobs correspond to each other > with what common ancestor notes blob while merging two notes trees. Right. > But I do not think that "an index" that we use for the usual working > tree merge is necessarily a good representation for driving such a > ll-merge driver and recording its result. Each side likely has a > note for the same object to be merged in a different fan-out layout, > and fan-out is merely a performance hack to spread the objects in > smaller trees. As mergetools only work with the usual working tree > with the usual index, they may be a poor substitute for ll-merge > drivers to handle merging notes trees. I won't pretend to have fully understood that ;-) I'm certainly not religious about how such a merge workflow would be implemented. I just wanted to point out that the current mechanism doesn't readily expose the common ancestor in a way which makes the merge convenient. IMHO the more similar the merge's user experience is to a standard merge, the better, since that would minimise the number of merging workflows the user needs to learn. On this theme, I think ideally rebase should be supported too, and that does make me wonder if there's a good reason why notes shouldn't be stored in real branches, or at least something which looks more like a branch (even if "git branch" doesn't list it). In particular, applying the concept of remote tracking branches to notes would be most useful. Currently my "git rnotes" wrapper is faking remote tracking branches via refs/notes/$remote/$GIT_NOTES_REF, but that means that if I want to push a set of notes to a remote repository, it's not sufficient to do the following: git push $remote refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF:refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF I also have to manually update the fake tracking "branch": git update-ref refs/notes/$remote/$GIT_NOTES_REF refs/notes/$GIT_NOTES_REF # or if I want to make really sur
Re: improvements to checks for core.notesRef / GIT_NOTES_REF / --ref
Adam Spiers writes: > static struct notes_tree *init_notes_check(const char *subcommand) > ... > Can we relax this to "refs/", to allow better isolation of namespaces > for remote notes? Also, the check is applied for GIT_NOTES_REF and > core.notesRef, but not for values passed via --ref. Therefore I would > propose that init_notes_check() is not only relaxed but also moved > from builtin/notes.c to notes.c, so that it can be consumed by > default_notes_ref(). Thoughts? Such a policy decision at the application level should be done in builtin/notes.c, and not notes.c, I think. It is OK to have a sharable check routine in notes.c and help different notes applications to implement their own sanity checking, though. "git notes" that operates only on local notes might restrict its operation to refs/notes, while "git notes-merge" may allow it to read from other hierarchies but still write only into refs/notes, for example. I am not sure if it is a good idea in general to have a separate remotes-notes/ hierarchy in the first place, though. Wouldn't the notes be less like branches (private view) and more like tags (common world view)? > Also, are there any plans in the future for making "git notes merge" > provide an index, so that a proper 3-way merge with ancestor can be > done using git mergetool? Are we committed that all notes leaves must be blobs (I do not personally mind it)? I do think we need a way to call a custom low level 3-way merge driver once we identify which notes blobs correspond to each other with what common ancestor notes blob while merging two notes trees. But I do not think that "an index" that we use for the usual working tree merge is necessarily a good representation for driving such a ll-merge driver and recording its result. Each side likely has a note for the same object to be merged in a different fan-out layout, and fan-out is merely a performance hack to spread the objects in smaller trees. As mergetools only work with the usual working tree with the usual index, they may be a poor substitute for ll-merge drivers to handle merging notes trees. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
