What is git-html5.js?

git-html5.js is a pure javascript git client library. It implements a complete Git workflow in nothing but javascript. It's meant to run in a browser environment and depends on so-called "html5" API's. Some example use cases:

• Browser based code editors
• Browser devtools
• ChromeOS/FirefoxOS system tools
• ChromeOS/FirefoxOS applications that require git support

The api requires the ability to make cross-origin XHR requests. This usually means a browser extension but theoretically there could be a git hosting service that supports CORS. git-html5.js also depends on the FileSystem api. This means that for now it only works with Chrome and Opera. There is a FileSystem polyfill for Firefox but I haven't tested to see if this would work with git-html5.js

Demo

To test the API, I ported Adobe's brackets code editor to a Chrome packaged app. I named the port Tailor. You can get it on the Chrome Web Store. If you can't be bothered to try it out, I also added some demo videos to the Tailor overview page.

Downloading

The repo includes a built version of the api. Download api-built.js.

Building

You can also clone the repo and build it yourself. You'll need Node and Grunt to manually build it. Once you have Node and Grunt installed, you would do something like

git clone https://github.com/ryanackley/git-html5.js.git
cd git-html5.js
npm install
grunt

The default build of the api uses a webworker to handle the api calls. If you want don't want to use webworkers for api calls, you'll need to build using

grunt no-worker

Tests

The tests are run as a qunit test page inside a chrome packaged app. Load the root source directory as an unpacked extension in Chrome, then launch the packaged app in your browser. You'll need to point the test page at an empty git repository to run.

Known Issues and Limitations

This is a first version so there are some limitations

• Do not work with a remote git repo that is very important and dear to you. While very unlikely, it's possible that there is some horrendous bug that could cause permanent data loss. You've been warned.
• It's recommended that you use a depth of 1 when cloning a repo since there is no way to access commit history via the api.
• The api only supports fast-forward merges. For more info see the section below on branching
• If you try to work with a git repo the size of say WebKit or the Chromium project, you're gonna have a bad time. The library works well with small to medium size repos.
• Doesn't work with repos hosted on Bitbucket.org because of this issue.
• Only works with remote git repos that support the smart protocol over http or https
• Only supports basic authentication

API quick start

For brevity in the documentation, I'm ommitting code that would be used to access the sandboxed filesystem. Instead, you can assume that the code examples below are wrapped with the following code block

// To obtain a reference to a directory named "projectHome" under the root filesystem directory you would use the following code.
window.requestFileSystem(window.PERSISTENT, 5*1024*1024*1024, function(fs){
    fs.root.getDirectory('projectHome', {create:true}, function(projectHome){
        // git-html5.js function calls go here.
    });
});

Cloning a remote git repo into a your browser-based filesystem

var options = {
    dir: projectHome,
    url: 'https://github.com/ryanackley/git-html5.js.git',
    depth: 1
};

GitApi.clone(options, function(){ 
    // clone has completed at this point, do something with the files that have been imported into dir
});

Committing a local change into your local git repo

git-html5.js doesn't have an equivalent to the 'git add' command. Instead, when you call commit, it does an implicit add of all changes. This includes previously untracked files.

var options = {
    dir: projectHome,
    name: 'Ryan Ackley',
    email: 'ryanackley@gmail.com',
    commitMsg: 'commit message'
};

GitApi.commit(options, function(){
    // commit completed at this point
});

Pushing your local commits to the remote git repo

GitApi.push({dir: projectHome}, function(){
    // push completed at this point
});

Pulling changes from your remote git repo

At the moment, only fast forward pulls are supported. To workaround this see Branching below.

GitApi.pull({dir: projectHome}, function(){
    // the pull is complete at this point
});

Branching your local repo

Because the api only supports fast-forward pulls, it's possible to get in a situation where you can't push your current branch back to the remote git repo. In these cases, you'll need to create a local branch, do a checkout the new branch, then push your local branch to the remote.

GitApi.branch({dir: projectHome, branch: 'testBranch'}, function(){
    GitApi.checkout({dir: projectHome, branch: 'testBranch'}, function(){  
        // checkout complete, do a push here
    });
});

Complete API documentation

See the JSDoc generated documentation

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Ryan Ackley. All rights reserved.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.