Document patch syntax.
[stgit] / Documentation / stg.txt
1 stg(1)
2 ======
3 Yann Dirson <ydirson@altern.org>
4 v0.12.1, February 2007
5
6 NAME
7 ----
8 stg - manage stacks of patches using the GIT content tracker
9
10 SYNOPSIS
11 --------
12 [verse]
13 'stg' [--version | --help]
14 'stg' [--help <command> | <command> --help]
15 'stg' <command> [COMMAND OPTIONS] [ARGS]
16
17 DESCRIPTION
18 -----------
19
20 StGIT (Stacked GIT) is an application providing similar functionality
21 to Quilt (i.e. pushing/popping patches to/from a stack), on top of
22 GIT. These operations are performed using GIT commands and the patches
23 are stored as GIT commit objects, allowing easy merging of the StGIT
24 patches into other repositories using standard GIT functionality.
25
26 An StGIT stack is a GIT branch with additional information to help
27 making changes to individual patches you already committed, rather
28 than making changes by adding new commits. It is thus a
29 non-forwarding, or rewinding branch: the old head of the branch is
30 often not reachable as one of the new head's ancestors.
31
32 Typical uses of StGIT include:
33
34 Tracking branch::
35 Tracking changes from a remote branch, while maintaining local
36 modifications against that branch, possibly with the intent of
37 sending some patches upstream. StGIT assists in preparing and
38 cleaning up patches until they are acceptable upstream, as
39 well as maintaining local patches not meant to be sent
40 upstream.
41 +
42 In such a setup, typically all commits on your branch are StGIT
43 patches; the stack base is the branch point where your changes "fork"
44 off their parent branch.
45
46 Development branch::
47 Preparing and testing your commits before publishing them,
48 separating your features from unrelated bugfixes collected
49 while developping.
50 +
51 In such a setup, not all commits on your branch need to be StGIT
52 patches; there may be regular GIT commits below your stack base.
53
54 Patches
55 ~~~~~~~
56
57 Many StGIT commands take references to StGIT patches as arguments.
58 Patches in the stack are identified with short names, each of which
59 must be unique in the stack.
60
61 Patches in the current stack are just referred to by their name. Some
62 commands allow you to specify a patch in another stack of the repository;
63 this is done by suffixing the patch name with an '@' sign followed by the
64 branch name (eg. 'thispatch@otherbranch').
65
66 A number of positions in the stack related to the patch are also
67 accessible through '//' suffixes. For example, 'patch//top' is
68 equivalent to 'patch', and 'patch//bottom' refers to the commit below
69 'patch' (i.e. the patch below, or the stack base if this is the
70 bottom-most patch). Similarly '//top.old' and '//bottom.old'
71 refer to the previous version of the patch (before the last
72 stglink:push[] or stglink:refresh[] operation). When referring to the
73 current patch, its name can be omitted (eg. 'currentpatch//bottom.old'
74 can be abbreviated as 'bottom.old').
75
76 If you need to pass a given StGIT reference to a git command,
77 stglink:id[] will convert it to a git commit id.
78
79 OPTIONS
80 -------
81
82 The following generic option flags are available. Additional options
83 are available per-command, and documented in the command-specific
84 documentation.
85
86 --version::
87 Prints the StGIT suite version that the 'stg' program came
88 from, as well as version of other components used, such as GIT
89 and Python.
90
91 --help::
92 Prints the synopsis and a list of all commands. If a git
93 command is given this option will display the specific help
94 for that command.
95
96 STGIT COMMANDS
97 --------------
98
99 We divide StGIT commands in thematic groups, according to the primary
100 type of object they create or change.
101
102 ifdef::backend-docbook[]
103 Here is a short description of each command. A more detailed
104 description is available in individual command manpages. Those
105 manpages are named 'stg-<command>(1)'.
106 endif::backend-docbook[]
107
108 Generic commands
109 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
110
111 User-support commands not touching the repository.
112
113 stg help::
114 stgdesc:help[]
115 stg version::
116 stgdesc:version[]
117 stg copyright::
118 stgdesc:copyright[]
119
120 Repository commands
121 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
122
123 stglink:clone[]::
124 stgdesc:clone[]
125 stglink:id[]::
126 stgdesc:id[]
127
128 Stack commands
129 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
130
131 Stack management
132 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
133
134 stglink:branch[]::
135 stgdesc:branch[]
136 stglink:init[]::
137 stgdesc:init[]
138 stglink:clean[]::
139 stgdesc:clean[]
140 stglink:pull[]::
141 stgdesc:pull[]
142 stglink:rebase[]::
143 stgdesc:rebase[]
144
145 stglink:commit[]::
146 stgdesc:commit[]
147 stglink:uncommit[]::
148 stgdesc:uncommit[]
149 stglink:assimilate[]::
150 stgdesc:assimilate[]
151
152 Controlling what patches are applied
153 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
154
155 stglink:series[]::
156 stgdesc:series[]
157 stglink:push[]::
158 stgdesc:push[]
159 stglink:pop[]::
160 stgdesc:pop[]
161 stglink:goto[]::
162 stgdesc:goto[]
163 stglink:float[]::
164 stgdesc:float[]
165 stglink:bury[]::
166 stgdesc:bury[]
167 stglink:applied[]::
168 stgdesc:applied[]
169 stglink:unapplied[]::
170 stgdesc:unapplied[]
171 stglink:top[]::
172 stgdesc:top[]
173
174 stglink:hide[]::
175 stgdesc:hide[]
176 stglink:unhide[]::
177 stgdesc:unhide[]
178
179 Miscellaneous stack commands
180 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
181
182 stglink:patches[]::
183 stgdesc:patches[]
184
185
186 Patch commands
187 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
188
189 Patch management
190 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
191
192 stglink:new[]::
193 stgdesc:new[]
194 stglink:delete[]::
195 stgdesc:delete[]
196 stglink:rename[]::
197 stgdesc:rename[]
198 stglink:log[]::
199 stgdesc:log[]
200
201 Controlling patch contents
202 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
203
204 stglink:files[]::
205 stgdesc:files[]
206 stglink:show[]::
207 stgdesc:show[]
208 stglink:refresh[]::
209 stgdesc:refresh[]
210 stglink:fold[]::
211 stgdesc:fold[]
212 stglink:pick[]::
213 stgdesc:pick[]
214 stglink:sync[]::
215 stgdesc:sync[]
216
217 Interaction with the rest of the world
218 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
219
220 stglink:export[]::
221 stgdesc:export[]
222 stglink:import[]::
223 stgdesc:import[]
224 stglink:mail[]::
225 stgdesc:mail[]
226
227
228 Working-copy commands
229 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
230
231 stglink:add[]::
232 stgdesc:add[]
233 stglink:rm[]::
234 stgdesc:rm[]
235 stglink:cp[]::
236 stgdesc:cp[]
237 stglink:status[]::
238 stgdesc:status[]
239 stglink:diff[]::
240 stgdesc:diff[]
241 stglink:resolved[]::
242 stgdesc:resolved[]
243
244 CONFIGURATION MECHANISM
245 -----------------------
246
247 Starting with 0.12, StGIT uses the same configuration mechanism as
248 GIT. See gitlink:git[7] for more details.
249
250 TEMPLATES
251 ---------
252
253 A number of StGIT commands make use of template files to provide
254 useful default texts to be edited by the user. These '<name>.tmpl'
255 template files are searched in the following directories:
256
257 $GITDIR/
258 $HOME/.stgit/templates/
259 /usr/share/stgit/templates/