[llvm-dev] [RFC] One or many git repositories?

[Sean Silva via llvm-dev]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Sean Silva <chisophugis at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 6:26 PM, Justin Bogner via llvm-dev <
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>> Justin Lebar <jlebar at google.com> writes:
>> >> Running the same 'git checkout' commands on multiple repos has
>> >> always been sufficient to manage the multiple repos so far
>> >
>> > Huh.  It definitely hasn't worked well for me.
>> >
>> > Here's the issue I face every day.  I may be working on (unrelated)
>> > changes to clang and llvm.  I update my llvm tree (say I checked in a
>> > patch, or I want to pull in changes someone else has checked in).  Now
>> > I want to go back to hacking on my clang stuff.  Because my clang
>> > branch is not connected to a specific LLVM revision, it no longer
>> > compiles.  I'm trying to build an old clang against a new llvm.
>> >
>> > Now I have to pull the latest clang and rebase my patches.  After I
>> > deal with rebase conflicts (not what I wanted to do at the moment!),
>> > I'm in a new state, which means when I build my ccache is no help.
>> > And when I run the clang tests, I don't know whether to expect test
>> > failures.  So then I have to pop of my patches and run at head...
>> > (Maybe I have to update clang!  In which case I also have to update
>> > llvm...)
>> >
>> > This would all be solved with zero work on my part if llvm and clang
>> > were in one repository.  Then when I switched to working on my clang
>> > patches, I would automatically check out a version of LLVM that is
>> > compatible.
>> >
>> > I think this is the main thing that people aren't getting.  Maybe
>> > because it's never been possible before to have a workflow like this.
>> > But having a git branch that you can check out and immediately build
>> > -- without any rebasing, re-syncing, or other messing around -- is
>> > incredibly powerful.
>>
>> I don't know man, when I create a branch to save my clang work I just
>> create a branch with the same name in all the other repos I have checked
>> out, then it just stays in the state I left it in as I go do other
>> stuff. This kind of problem just hasn't really come up for me.
>>
>
> It has for me, and it is a serious problem.
>
>
>>
>> > Please let me know if this is still not clear -- it's kind of the key
>> point.
>> >
>> > As I said, you can accomplish this with submodules, too, but it
>> > requires the complex hackery from my original email.
>> >
>> > To me, this is not at all a minor inconvenience.  It's at least an
>> > hour of wasted time every week.
>> >
>> >> I haven't tried the options jlebar has described to deal with these
>> >> - sparse checkouts and whatnot, but they seem like an equivalent
>> >> amount of work/learning curve as writing a script that cd's to
>> >> several directories and runs the same git command in each.
>> >
>> > I'll send sparse checkout instructions separately.  But my example
>> > submodules commands are not at all equivalent to a script that cd's
>> > into several directories and runs a git command in each, and I think
>> > this is the main point of confusion.  (In fact you wouldn't need to
>> > write such a script; it's just "git submodule foreach".)
>> >
>> > The submodules commands creates a single branch in the umbrella repo
>> > that encompasses the checked-out state of *all the LLVM subrepos*.  So
>> > you can, at a later time, check out this branch in the umbrella repo
>> > and all the clang, llvm, etc. bits will be identical to the last time
>> > you were on the branch.
>> >
>> > If all you want is to continue using git the way you use it now, the
>> > multiple git repos gets you that (as does a sparse checkout on the
>> > single repo).  My point is that, the move to git opens up a new, much
>> > more powerful workflow with branches that encompass both llvm and
>> > clang state.  We can do this with or without submodules, but using
>> > submodules for this is far more awkward than using a single repo.
>>
>> If I do `git log` in a sparse checkout that just has LLVM, will it only
>> show me LLVM commits? That is, how easy is it to filter out the
>> clang/lldb/subproject-X commits from a log? Negative globs are kind of
>> awkward.
>>
>
> It is extremely easy (even with a full checkout): `git log llvm/`
>

To be clear, this is with a layout like:
https://github.com/llvm-project/llvm-project

-- Sean Silva


>
> -- Sean Silva
>
>
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