git-srepo

Integrate other repositories into your git repository. This is a simpler alternative to git subtree, submodule, stree, and subrepo.

What problem git-srepo solves:

Commits to an imported subrepo are kept within your project repo until you push them to the subrepo. Local changes are maintained as a clean, rebased set of patches for upstream contribution.

Installation

Just add the git-srepo script to your PATH.

Supported platforms: Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Examples

Import d3 repository into lib/d3 folder:

git srepo import lib/d3 https://github.com/mbostock/d3

Export a folder into a new repo (also converts that folder to a subrepo):

git srepo export src/mylib https://github.com/myaccount/mylib master

Build imported subrepo into .git/.subrepo/lib/d3 (so you can pull/push, for example):

git srepo build lib/d3

Load your subrepo state from .git/.subrepo/lib/d3 into the project (e.g. after you pull):

git srepo load lib/d3

List imported repositories:

git srepo list

More details

This extension maintains a linear, rebased set of your local changes, so there won't be any merge commits, etc. This is important because most projects won't accept your patches unless they're clean.

All state (including the rebased set of patches!) is committed to your repository. This means anyone can pull new changes and contribute your team's changes back upstream.

Also, this extension does all its magic in a separate clone (in .git/.subrepo). This is important because you'll most likely have existing software (an IDE, a build script, etc.) monitoring your repository for changes. It would be really annoying if your IDE closed all your files during a pull.

Why?

None of the other solutions allows maintaining your changes in a way that allows easy upstream contribution through a linear, rebased set of patches. This is the main problem I want to solve.

Additionally, the other solutions have these issues:

With git subtree your history gets polluted. See here for more details: https://medium.com/@porteneuve/mastering-git-subtrees-943d29a798ec

With git submodule you have to be aware of imported repos and run extra commands and create forks for your project-specific commits. This makes using your project unnecessarily complicated. See here for more reasons: http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/alternatives-to-git-submodule-git-subtree/

With git stree, the subtree's settings are kept local to your repo, so you're the only one who can pull new changes and you better do some backups in case your disk dies.

With git subrepo, pulls can lose your local changes. This bug might also exist in git stree. Also, with git subrepo, the subrepo gets checked out within your project repository on every subrepo pull. This breaks your IDE and any build scripts watching your repo, as described above.

Known issues

Building the subrepo history can take a long time when there are lots of commits in that subrepo folder, especially on Windows. Currently we always rebuild the whole history instead of reusing the existing repo once it's built.

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome. Just create a fork of this repo and send a pull request. Thank you. :)