b4 prep from detached HEAD

b4 prep from detached HEAD

[Markus Schneider-Pargmann]

Hi,

thanks for b4, I am finally trying this after seeing your great blog
post.

Unfortunately it seems that b4 prep is not able to handle not being on a
branch:

	git checkout v6.1
	b4 prep -n up/test -f v6.1
		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
		CRITICAL: fork-point v6.1 is not on the current branch.
		          Switch to the branch you want to use as base and try again.

Also b4 translates my branch name I wanted to use 'up/test' to 'up-test'
is there a reason for that?

Not sure these issues were mentioned before.

Best,
Markus

Re: b4 prep from detached HEAD

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 11:15:39AM +0100, Markus Schneider-Pargmann wrote:
> Unfortunately it seems that b4 prep is not able to handle not being on a
> branch:
> 
> 	git checkout v6.1
> 	b4 prep -n up/test -f v6.1
> 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> 		CRITICAL: fork-point v6.1 is not on the current branch.
> 		          Switch to the branch you want to use as base and try again.

Yes, we currently use "what branch you're currently on" as our base tracking
branch. Knowing the base branch is less important with the default commit
strategy, but it will come in handy when I add the "prep --cleanup" feature
that will remove prep-tracked branches if we find that they have been merged
into the base branch (e.g. master).

I will probably add a --base-branch flag to go with "prep -n", though, so
eventually it will be possible to create new prep-tracked branches from
arbitrary locations in the tree.

In your particular case, you don't need to checkout v6.1 before running prep.
You can just start in master and rerun "b4 prep -n [name] -f v6.1".

> Also b4 translates my branch name I wanted to use 'up/test' to 'up-test'
> is there a reason for that?

Yes, the branch name becomes the base of the message-id, which in turn becomes
the base of lore lookup URL. We replace all non-url-friendly characters to
avoid a url-encoding mess.

Best wishes,
-K

Re: b4 prep from detached HEAD

[Markus Schneider-Pargmann]

Hi Konstantin,

On Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 10:14:33AM -0500, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 11:15:39AM +0100, Markus Schneider-Pargmann wrote:
> > Unfortunately it seems that b4 prep is not able to handle not being on a
> > branch:
> > 
> > 	git checkout v6.1
> > 	b4 prep -n up/test -f v6.1
> > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > 		CRITICAL: fork-point v6.1 is not on the current branch.
> > 		          Switch to the branch you want to use as base and try again.
> 
> Yes, we currently use "what branch you're currently on" as our base tracking
> branch. Knowing the base branch is less important with the default commit
> strategy, but it will come in handy when I add the "prep --cleanup" feature
> that will remove prep-tracked branches if we find that they have been merged
> into the base branch (e.g. master).
> 
> I will probably add a --base-branch flag to go with "prep -n", though, so
> eventually it will be possible to create new prep-tracked branches from
> arbitrary locations in the tree.
> 
> In your particular case, you don't need to checkout v6.1 before running prep.
> You can just start in master and rerun "b4 prep -n [name] -f v6.1".

Thanks for explaining. The checkout of v6.1 was just an example. I often
use detached HEAD on remote branches and tags to not pollute the
branches that I have. I thought b4 prep would ignore the current state
of my work directory so I used it similarly to a 'git checkout -b'.
I may be creating a git helper for me which does a git checkout -b and a
b4 prep -e afterwards.

> 
> > Also b4 translates my branch name I wanted to use 'up/test' to 'up-test'
> > is there a reason for that?
> 
> Yes, the branch name becomes the base of the message-id, which in turn becomes
> the base of lore lookup URL. We replace all non-url-friendly characters to
> avoid a url-encoding mess.

That does make sense, thank you.

Best,
Markus

> 
> Best wishes,
> -K

Re: b4 prep from detached HEAD

[Markus Schneider-Pargmann]

Hi Konstantin,

On Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 05:06:33PM +0100, Markus Schneider-Pargmann wrote:
> Hi Konstantin,
> 
> On Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 10:14:33AM -0500, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 11:15:39AM +0100, Markus Schneider-Pargmann wrote:
> > > Unfortunately it seems that b4 prep is not able to handle not being on a
> > > branch:
> > > 
> > > 	git checkout v6.1
> > > 	b4 prep -n up/test -f v6.1
> > > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > > 		Not able to get current branch (git symbolic-ref HEAD)
> > > 		CRITICAL: fork-point v6.1 is not on the current branch.
> > > 		          Switch to the branch you want to use as base and try again.
> > 
> > Yes, we currently use "what branch you're currently on" as our base tracking
> > branch. Knowing the base branch is less important with the default commit
> > strategy, but it will come in handy when I add the "prep --cleanup" feature
> > that will remove prep-tracked branches if we find that they have been merged
> > into the base branch (e.g. master).
> > 
> > I will probably add a --base-branch flag to go with "prep -n", though, so
> > eventually it will be possible to create new prep-tracked branches from
> > arbitrary locations in the tree.
> > 
> > In your particular case, you don't need to checkout v6.1 before running prep.
> > You can just start in master and rerun "b4 prep -n [name] -f v6.1".
> 
> Thanks for explaining. The checkout of v6.1 was just an example. I often
> use detached HEAD on remote branches and tags to not pollute the
> branches that I have. I thought b4 prep would ignore the current state
> of my work directory so I used it similarly to a 'git checkout -b'.
> I may be creating a git helper for me which does a git checkout -b and a
> b4 prep -e afterwards.

A short follow-up. Using
	git checkout -b BRANCH BASETAG
	b4 prep -e BASETAG

unfortunately doesn't work as the code requires another branch to exist
that contains the tag (not a remote branch only local branches are
accepted).

I am not really sure how the normal workflow for non commit strategies
is supposed to work? Do I need to keep a local master branch that tracks
linus/master? (I usually don't have that at all and always start new
branches from remote branches)

Thanks,
Markus