GIT - how to keep a file common across all branches
Suppose I have a file "ChangeLog" in branch "master". I want to record information about all changes in any branch in this file (in more detail than in a commit message and with other descriptive information).
I git checkout -b revA
, perform edits, update ChangeLog
and git commit
.
I then git checkout -b master
. This checkout will replace ChangeLog with the version in branch "master".
What I would like is for ChangeLog to automagically be the most recently modified version irrespective of which branch I've checked out. I don't want to manually merge (or, most likely, forget to merge) ChangeLog from some other branch into my current branch.
I haven't found anything which seems to allow this. Is it possible t开发者_运维问答o do this?
You could use a post-checkout hook:
#!/bin/sh
newref="$2"
isbranch="$3"
# ignore file checkouts
if test $isbranch -eq 0; then
exit 0
fi
path=ChangeLog
git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate \
--format='%(objectname) %(refname:short)' \
refs/heads/\* |
while read sha ref; do
if git rev-parse --verify --quiet "$sha:$path" >/dev/null
then
if test "$newref" != "$sha"; then
echo Checking out $path from $ref
git checkout $sha -- "$path"
fi
break
fi
done
It will still be up to you to add and commit the ChangeLog
on your branch if appropriate.
This hook sorts branches by their heads' respective commit dates, which could be problematic. Say you create a topic branch rooted at a commit in master's history. Even though its snapshot of ChangeLog
is older in the sense of calendar time, the hook above will treat it as the newest because it is referenced by a commit that was created more recently, so be careful that you don't accidentally lose work by switching branches when you have unstaged changes to ChangeLog
.
I know that this answer is begging the question, but I think that anything else is setting yourself up for a maintenance headache.
If you put sufficient description into your commit messages then git log
fits the requirement. All the changes that are in a particular branch are described exactly by the commits that go into it and it is impossible for it to be out of date or have descriptions for changes that aren't in it ascribed to it.
Ever since I've moved to git I've given up maintaining a change log manually. For me, it had no value and significant cost.
There is no reason not to put full descriptions in commits. With --amend
you can fix up spelling errors and add detail, and if you stick to the convention of having a brief subject line and a fuller description then you can choose between short and long log formats.
Put it in a separate repository and use a submodule to link it into each branch.
Write a post-commit hook to merge the file into the other branches. http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/githooks.html
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