Mercurial. Delete a branch pushed to repository - version-control

I pushed a branch to the repository that is never going to be used again. How can I delete it ?

You cannot delete anything on a remote repository. History editing actions do need local acces (e.g. also via web interface like availabe on bitbucket).
If you have local access to the repository, then you can strip the changesets which you do not want anymore. Mind, that it's altering history, thus make a backup before. Also mind, that anyone who pulled those changes and does not strip them locally, too, will bring them back, if that person pushes to that repo.
EDIT to add:
That said, if you make use of phases, have a non-publishing repository as server, and the changes you pushed are of draft phase, then it is possible to simply strip the changes without local access. This is especially useful, if you use the evolve extension.

Related

How to correct «unable to merge unrelated histories»?

I use github desktop (https://desktop.github.com ) while developing the application with several other people, so, for some reason, when trying to merge two branches into one, the error "unable to merge unrelated histories" is displayed for one of the target branches.
What could be the problem?
First of all: You may also be able to find a solution using the search.
Potential reasons for the error message
From: https://komodor.com/learn/how-to-fix-fatal-refusing-to-merge-unrelated-histories-error
Here are some common scenarios where fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories can occur.
You have a new Git repository with some commits. You then try to pull from an existing remote repo. The merge becomes incompatible because the histories for branch and remote pull are different. Git sees the situation as you trying to merge two completely unrelated branches, and it doesn’t know what to do.
There’s something wrong with the .git directory. It may have been accidentally deleted at some point or got corrupted. This can happen if you’ve cloned or cleaned a project. Here the error occurs because Git doesn’t have the necessary information about your local project’s history.
The branches are at different HEAD positions when you try to push or pull data from a remote repo and cannot be matched due to a lack of commonality.
Options to resolve the issue
The article describes two options on how to resolve/avoid such issues but targets command line /terminal users. I guess I would prefer option 2 over option 1 anyway, also using git in the terminal.
The article explains it like this:
The alternative (and longer) way of fixing refusing to merge unrelated histories issues is to unstage your current commits, stash them, clone your required remote repository, and then place your stashed branch contents into the new clone. This will ensure that any conflicts that you may encounter in the code are addressed before merging and prevent application errors from occurring.
How it (should) work in GitHub Desktop
In GitHub Desktop you should be able to use a modified version of option 2:
To unstage all the files in your last commit, double click staged files. This moves them to the unstaged area. Learn more in this GitHub issue.
To stash your unsaved files, right-click an unstaged file. Learn more about stashing files.
This will give you a clean working tree to pull your remote repository into. Once you’ve successfully pulled into your branch, you can:
unstash your files (see link above again) to reapply them to your current working copy.
commit them as a separate commit.
resolve any file conflicts that you may have.
I hope this explanation adds some clarity. Let me know if there are any wrong or misleading information in my text please.
This problem has several reasons.
But probably your project clone just differs from GitHub (main project).
First of all, save your project (because you probably don't want to code everything again).
Remove repo from GitHub desktop (not GitHub!!!)
Go to the project page in GitHub
Click code, open with GitHub Desktop, and code again.

Safe way to rename GitHub repository to the name of one I just deleted?

I had 2 repos on Github: "RepoName" and "RepoName_old". I thought I was going to rebuild my project but changed my mind and have been improving "RepoName_old" ever since. I deleted "RepoName".
If I rename "RepoName_old" to "RepoName" (the deleted repository), will something go horribly wrong? The official documentation warns against trying to pull from a branch associated with the old name...I guess that's a different thing...will GitHub Desktop acknowledge the new name after I make the change?
I have terrible experience mismanaging my git repositories and I want to avoid another setback by being informed and careful.
GitHub Desktop is a local tool which should reflect the changes done on GitHub.
On GitHub side, if you have deleted RemoName, you should be able to rename "RepoName_old" to RepoName.
Check first that it works on github.com.
Then try and clone it in command line, and, with GitHub Desktop, add it from your local folder. That should force GitHub Desktop to recognize RepoName with its new origin URL.

How can I copy an git repository in Xcode to github?

Every time a try to use github I get tangled in a series of errors that seem to have no solution and I give up. This time I thought I'd try to get help.
I have a local repository created and managed with Xcode. All the local git functions in Xcode work with no problem. Now I want to put this project on github so others can see it. I logged into github and created a repository. It's this one:
lummis/CS193P-2015-Assignment-5
I added a .gitignore file but then deleted it again because I thought it was causing an error. I tried adding a readme file but wasn't able to. I got some error that didn't make sense to me so I gave up on that. So at this point the github repository is empty so far as I can tell.
My local repository has many commits and is currently up-to-date. IOW there is nothing to commit. But when I do "Source Code / Push" I get the following error:
Working copy out of date. Try pulling from the remote to get the
latest changes then push again.
So I try to do that in Xcode by doing "Source Control / Pull". But then I get this error:
"github/master" is not a valid remote branch to pull from. Please
choose a different remote branch.
But there is only one branch. There is no other branch (local or remote) to choose. So I'm stuck in a Xcode-github error loop again. I searched for information about this but didn't find anything relevant. I have the Pro Git book and read and understood it at least thru chapter 2. But that doesn't help on interacting with Xcode.
Can anybody say what I need to do? I thought of deleting the remote repository and starting over but apparently there's no way to do that either!
I know lots of people use github so it must work once you know how to use it but it's a big source of frustration for me.
You have a local repository with "many commits". Let's imagine that we have three:
A---B---C
^
master
Your remote repository on GitHub also contains commits, but they are different ones from what you have locally, e.g.
Y---Z
^
master
At least one of these remote commits was created through the GitHub web interface, which creates a new commit each time you use it.
Because the two repositories contain no common history, Git can't figure out how to handle a push from your local repository to the remote one. It will refuse to accept such a push rather than making any remote commits inaccessible, which is what you usually want.
In this case, commits Y and Z in the remote repository can be discarded. They simply add and then remove a .gitignore file, and you want the remote to reflect what you have locally. The solution is to force push.
Force pushing should generally be avoided, since it can cause commits to be discarded (like Y and Z will be in this case) or to have their hashes changed, which causes major problems with shared repositories. In this instance I don't see any danger in force pushing, which can be accomplished with the -f or --force argument to git push.
(There's nothing fundamentally wrong with force pushing, and in some situations it makes perfect sense, but it should be done with care for the reasons listed above.)

How do you use Git within Eclipse as it was intended?

I've recently been looking at using Git to eventually replace the CVS repository we have at work. However after watching Linus Torvalds' video on YouTube about Git it seems that every tutorial I find suggests using Git in the same way CVS is used except that you have a local repository which I agree is very useful for speed and distribution.
However the tutorials suggest that what you do is each clone the repository you want to develop on from a remote location and that when changes are made you commit locally building up a history to help with merge control. When you are ready to commit your changes you then push them to the remote location, but first you fetch changes to check for merge conflicts (just like CVS).
However in Linus' video he describe the functionality of Git as a group of developers working on some code pushing and fetching from each other as needed, not using a remote location i.e. a centralized location. He also describes people pushing their changes out to verifiers who fetch and push code also. So you can see it's possible to create scalable structure within a company also.
My question is can anybody point me in the direction of some tutorials that actually explain how to do this distributed development of code using Git so that developers push and fetch code from each other with out committing to the remote repository and if possible it would be very nice to have this tutorials Eclipsed based.
Thanks in advance,
Alexei Blue.
I don't know any specific tutorial about this. In general, for connecting to a repository, you have to be running a git server that listens (and authenticates) to git requests.
To have a specific repository for each developer is possible - but each repository needs that server component. It is possible to store multiple repositories on the same computer, that allows reducing the number of servers required.
However, for other reasons it is beneficial to have some kind of central structure (e.g. a repository for stuff to be released; or a repository for stuff not verified yet). This structure is not required to be a single central repository, but multiple ones with well-defined workflows regarding the data move between repositories (e.g. if code from the verification repository is validated, it should be pushed to the release repository).
In other words, you should be ready to create Git servers (e.g. see http://tumblr.intranation.com/post/766290565/how-set-up-your-own-private-git-server-linux for details; but there are other tutorials for this as well), and define workflows for your own company to use it.
Additionally, I recommend looking at AlBlue's blog series called Git Tip of the Week.
Finally, to ease the introduction I suggest to first introduce Git as a direct replacement for CVS, and then present the other changes one by one.
Take a look at alblue's blog entry on Gerrit
This shows a workflow different from the classic centralized server such as CVS or SVN. Superficially it looks similar as you pull the source from a central Git server, but you push your commits to the Gerrit server that can compile and test the code to make sure it works before eventually pushing the changes to the central Git server.
Now instead of pushing the changes to Gerrit, you could have pushed the code to your pair programming buddy and he could have manually reviewed and tested the code.
Or maybe you're going on holiday and a colleague will finish the task you've started. No problem, just push your changes to their Git repo.
Git doesn't treat any of these other Git instances any different from each other. From Git's perspective, none of them are special.

GitHub-2-GitHub issues import

As you know GitHub has introduced a Repo Transfer feature. https://github.com/blog/876-repo-transfers
This allows you to change ownership of your root repos, not forking them with your organization. However, if you have already forked a repo and want to dump all its open issues to newly created one, what should you do?
Is there any solution on GitHub-2-GitHub issues import?
Though Tekkub answer makes sense, I still implemented a short script to transfer issues:
github.com/..../gh-issues-import
You should delete the newly created one and transfer the repo instead. Transferring repo ownership takes the issues with it.
Tekkub wrote a not-so-well-received answer (-2 as of this writing): "You should delete the newly created one and transfer the repo instead. Transferring repo ownership takes the issues with it." He isn't wrong; he just didn't walk through any of the considerations and gotchas. I'll enumerate a few of those below ...
Only Works if you have "admin" access to the parent repo:
In my case, I couldn't use repo-migration because I don't "own" the parent repo so I can't authorize the transfer (parent repo in the hands of a team-member who left). So it doesn't work for me. HOWEVER ... if you do in fact have admin privileges to the parent repo you are migrating, then using the "transfer repo" function is distinctly better and nowhere near as hard as it sounds.
Git history - trivial to keep
One of the commenters expressed concern over the new repo having its own history they don't want to lose. Well, that's the magic of git as a distributed VCS. You simply pull down all branches and tags and everything else to your local repo and then push that history up to the repo you are going to migrate.
git remote add origin1 https://github.com/blah/blah
git remote add origin2 https://github.com/blah/blah
git pull origin1
git push origin2
If you've created issues in both repos ... well that's screwed
Decide which repo has more important content, use that as the base, and port everything else into there. It's a "merge". good luck. The gh-issues-import.py script script posted by ibo.ezhe helps, but it doesn't restore comments on the issues. Feel free to improve it and send him a PullRequest (I did).
There's a Chrome Extension called Kamino that my colleague wrote. It's open source, and works extraordinarily well. It's more for copying issues individually, but he's looking at doing bulk copies as well.
Available here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kamino/ffdebockfdjileaojbbccofhgncmioaf
Source code:
http://github.com/gatewayapps/kamino