GIT_guide_2_normal_use

[Git GUIDE] Normal use

This topic is for people who want to do a little work with SD2.

In this topic I assume that you are familar with basic use of Git and also that you are familiar with your GUI (if you use any).

If you are not, maybe you should start with the Easy use guide, see:

• Git GUIDE - Easy use

• Git GUIDE - Easy use on SD2 Forums

In this topic I will describe the needed steps to test other people’s patches, and how to create some own patches. However based on the Command-line tool.

For Windows users you can start the command line with right-clicking the ScriptDev2 directory and selecting "Git Bash Here".

Basic concepts in Git

Git has a working directory, these are the actual files you edit, compile and work with.

Git has a "index" which is the history information.+

By default the working directory is clean related to the index.

For this topic I assume that your working-tree is clean.

You can check this with $ git status .

Clean results in nothing to commit (working directory clean) .

If your working directory is not clean, you can either commit your changes (if they were good) with $ git commit -a .

or remove your changes with $ git reset --hard ,

or reset your working dir to default state with $ git reset -hard origin/master .

Testing ("applying") patches from other people

You can apply a git patch (located in fileName.patch) with
$ git apply fileName.patch
or
$ git am fileName.patch

The second expects a patch that includes history information, so if this fails, the first way must work (or it is no proper patch)

Creating own patches

You have spotted a bug, fixed it, and now you wonder how you can share this fix with other people.

The recommanded way is, to commit your change locally and create a patch file from your commit

To commit your patch locally, you simple need to
$ git commit -a -m "Make Illidan more powerfull"

Then you can create a patch with
$ git format-patch HEAD^ --stdout > IllidanFix.patch
which will create a patch for the top-most commit into the file IllidanFix.patch

You can also create a patch with
$ git format-patch HEAD~n --stdout > IllidanFix.patch
HEAD^ == HEAD~1 and is the previous commit, HEAD~n is the n-th commit before the current

A very usefull way to create a patch is based on clean ScriptDev2, with
$ git format-patch origin/master --stdout > IllidanFix.patch

Branching projects, and tests

This is actually the part, where Git has its power. If you don’t use branches, you prevent yourself from using the best within Git!

The main idea is to test patches, to create patches always into special branches, and this way they won’t interfere with the main-branch.

Assuming you are on clean master, you create and checkout into a new branch with
$ git checkout -b IlllidanFixes
(the -b is for "create", whereas the normal checkout means switching between branches)
so, you can edit, commit, apply patches as often as you want in your branch.

To compare what actually happend in this branch relative to ie your master branch, simply do
$ git diff master
and to create a patch do
$ git format-patch master --stdout > IllidanFix.patch

And the best thing: You can create as many branches as you wish - which makes separating different projects, tests and so on a piece of cake :)