3 ms·

By having a naming convention for your tags and branches, then you can always identify the upstream "base" upon which the Debian "patches" are based, and then y

By having a naming convention for your tags and branches, then you can always identify the upstream "base" upon which the Debian "patches" are based, and then you can trivially use `git log` to list them. Really, Git has a solution to this. If you insist that it doesn't without looking, you'll just keep re-inventing the wheel badly.

blibble 10mo ago
but then if I want to see the history for a specific patch, or bisect them? mercurial has a patch queue extension that married it and quilt, which was very easy to use
- cryptonector 10mo ago
  Do you ever really want this? I don't recall wanting this. But you can still get this: just list the ${base_ref}..${deb_ref} commit ranges, select the commit you want, and diff the `git show` of the selected commits. It helps here to keep the commit synopsis the same. E.g., c0=$(git log --oneline ${base_ref0}..${deb_ref0} | grep "^[^ ] The subject in question" | cut -d' ' -f1) c1=$(git log --oneline ${base_ref1}..${deb_ref1} | grep "^[^ ] The subject in question" | cut -d' ' -f1) if [[ -z $c0 || -z $c1 ]]; then echo "Error: commits not found" else diff -ubw <(git show $c0) <(git show c1) fi See also the above commentary about Gerrit and commit IDs. (Honestly I don't need commit IDs. What happens if I eventually split a commit in a patch series into two? Which one, if either, gets the old commit ID? So I just don't bother.)
  - mxey 10mo ago
    So there’s no way to have commit messages on changes to patches? There’s also https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep3/ https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep3/ People keep saying “just use Git commits” without understanding the advantages of the Quilt approach. There are tools to keep patches as Git commits that solve this, but “just Git commits” do not.
    - cryptonector 10mo ago
      Having maintained private versions of Debian packages, I have zero need for "commit messages on changes to patches". I can diff them as needed as I showed, but I rarely ever need to -- I mostly only rebase onto new upstreams. Seeing differences in patches isn't helpful because there is not enough context there as to what changed in the upstreams. I rather suspect that "commit messages on changes to patches" is what Debian ended up with and back-justifies it. Of course, I am not a Debian maintainer, so it's entirely possible I'm just missing the experience of it that would make me want "commit messages on changes to patches".
      - mxey 10mo ago
        Quilt was AFAIK used before Git, so you’re not wrong. But now that it’s there, it has some advantages. I’m not arguing against replacing Quilt, but it should be more than just Git. I haven’t done Debian packaging in a long time but apparently there are some Git-based tools now?
- IshKebab 10mo ago
  I don't know that I've ever wanted to diff a diff, but you could do that still. And bisecting would still be possible, especially if you use merges instead of rebases.
  - cryptonector 10mo ago
    Bisect rebases... you mean that you have two release branches based on divergent upstream branches and you want to quickly test where a bug was introduced on the way from the one to the other? What I would do in a rebase workflow is find the merge base (`git merge-base`) of the two release branches, and bisect from that to the release branch I'm interested in.

blibble 10mo ago

but then if I want to see the history for a specific patch, or bisect them? mercurial has a patch queue extension that married it and quilt, which was very easy to use

cryptonector 10mo ago
Do you ever really want this? I don't recall wanting this. But you can still get this: just list the ${base_ref}..${deb_ref} commit ranges, select the commit you want, and diff the `git show` of the selected commits. It helps here to keep the commit synopsis the same. E.g., c0=$(git log --oneline ${base_ref0}..${deb_ref0} | grep "^[^ ] The subject in question" | cut -d' ' -f1) c1=$(git log --oneline ${base_ref1}..${deb_ref1} | grep "^[^ ] The subject in question" | cut -d' ' -f1) if [[ -z $c0 || -z $c1 ]]; then echo "Error: commits not found" else diff -ubw <(git show $c0) <(git show c1) fi See also the above commentary about Gerrit and commit IDs. (Honestly I don't need commit IDs. What happens if I eventually split a commit in a patch series into two? Which one, if either, gets the old commit ID? So I just don't bother.)
- mxey 10mo ago
  So there’s no way to have commit messages on changes to patches? There’s also https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep3/ https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep3/ People keep saying “just use Git commits” without understanding the advantages of the Quilt approach. There are tools to keep patches as Git commits that solve this, but “just Git commits” do not.
  - cryptonector 10mo ago
    Having maintained private versions of Debian packages, I have zero need for "commit messages on changes to patches". I can diff them as needed as I showed, but I rarely ever need to -- I mostly only rebase onto new upstreams. Seeing differences in patches isn't helpful because there is not enough context there as to what changed in the upstreams. I rather suspect that "commit messages on changes to patches" is what Debian ended up with and back-justifies it. Of course, I am not a Debian maintainer, so it's entirely possible I'm just missing the experience of it that would make me want "commit messages on changes to patches".
    - mxey 10mo ago
      Quilt was AFAIK used before Git, so you’re not wrong. But now that it’s there, it has some advantages. I’m not arguing against replacing Quilt, but it should be more than just Git. I haven’t done Debian packaging in a long time but apparently there are some Git-based tools now?
IshKebab 10mo ago
I don't know that I've ever wanted to diff a diff, but you could do that still. And bisecting would still be possible, especially if you use merges instead of rebases.
- cryptonector 10mo ago
  Bisect rebases... you mean that you have two release branches based on divergent upstream branches and you want to quickly test where a bug was introduced on the way from the one to the other? What I would do in a rebase workflow is find the merge base (`git merge-base`) of the two release branches, and bisect from that to the release branch I'm interested in.