Re: [Quilt-dev] Using Quilt with other SCM

[Dave Dodge]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 11:01:18AM +0100, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> I'm using Quilt to prepare a stack of patches that I then selectively
> commit (when there are ready) to the non-distributed SCM of my team.

I've been working that way myself for about 6 months.

> $ cvs commit -m "Here I commit Mypatch1"
> 
> Then, I would like to drop mypatch1 from the patch series.

I just do it by hand.  When I'm ready to commit one or more patches to
our subversion respository, the procedure goes like this:

- "quilt pop -a"

- For each patch I want to commit:

  - "quilt push"

  - I compare "svn status -q" and "quilt files" to make sure that
    subversion sees all of the changes.  For example if the quilt
    patch adds a new file I'll probably need to do an "svn add" as
    well.  I think some operations, such as renames, can get a bit
    tricky because subversion wants to actually be the one to rename
    the file in my tree; those are all handled on a case-by-case basis
    when they come up.

  - "svn commit"

- After all of the patches have been committed, I hand-edit the
  "series" file to remove them from the front of the list.  For my own
  notes I keep track of them in a "committed" file, so I just cut and
  paste between the two lists.

- "rm -rf .pc"

  That wipes out quilt's history of applied patches.  The result is
  that quilt will now think that no patches are applied, and that the
  current directory contents (with the committed changes in place) is
  the baseline for the entire patch series.

I use the emacs quilt mode for most of my editing, and the presence of
a .pc directory is what indicates to it that the files are under
quilt's control.  So I usually then do some quilt operation such as
"new" or "push" that will at least cause the .pc directory to be
recreated.

Someone could probably automate those final editing steps into a new
quilt command, maybe something like "quilt baseline".  It hasn't yet
been so much trouble that I've felt the need to automate it myself.

> Or maybe I'm using Quilt completely the wrong way ?

I suspect there are many people who work this way.  Someone even
created a "Queues" extension for the Mecurial SCM that integrates
quilt-like functionality into the SCM itself.

                                                  -Dave Dodge