DVCS vs. Subversion brittleness (was Re: Moving to D)

[Michel Fortin]

On 2011-02-09 07:49:31 -0500, Bruno Medeiros 
<brunodomedeiros+spam at com.gmail> said:

> On 04/02/2011 20:11, Michel Fortin wrote:
>> On 2011-02-04 11:12:12 -0500, Bruno Medeiros
>> <brunodomedeiros+spam at com.gmail> said:
>> 
>>> Can Git really have an usable but incomplete local clone?
>> 
>> Yes, it's called a shallow clone. See the --depth switch of git clone:
>> <http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-clone.html>
> 
> I was about to say "Cool!", but then I checked the doc on that link and 
> it says:
> "A shallow repository has a number of limitations (you cannot clone or 
> fetch from it, nor push from nor into it), but is adequate if you are 
> only interested in the recent history of a large project with a long 
> history, and would want to send in fixes as patches. "
> So it's actually not good for what I meant, since it is barely usable 
> (you cannot push from it). :(

Actually, pushing from a shallow repository can work, but if your 
history is not deep enough it will be a problem when git tries 
determine the common ancestor. Be sure to have enough depth so that 
your history contains the common ancestor of all the branches you might 
want to merge, and also make sure the remote repository won't rewrite 
history beyond that point and you should be safe. At least, that's what 
I understand from:
<http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/pushing-from-a-shallow-repo-allowed-td2332252.html>

-- 


Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/