[Freeipa-devel] Proposal to have spec changes as a separate patch

[Alexander Bokovoy]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2013, Petr Viktorin wrote:
>On 07/18/2013 10:10 AM, Alexander Bokovoy wrote:
>>On Thu, 18 Jul 2013, Alexander Bokovoy wrote:
>>>On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Ana Krivokapic wrote:
>>>>Hello,
>>>>
>>>>This patch addresses ticket
>>>>https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/3652.
>>>Could you please rebase it on top of git master?
>>BTW, I was thinking on it and given that majority of rebases like this
>>one come due to spec changes, may be we could establishe a practice to
>>send spec-related changes as a separate patch in a patchset?
>>
>>This would allow easily testing the actual code changes since you don't
>>really need spec changes at that point or could handle it clearer with
>>pre-installed build dependencies.
>>
>>
>
>Or you could just set the union merge strategy on the spec file.
>This is potentially dangerous so only do it if for pushing to master 
>you apply patches in a separate "clean" repository without this 
>setting.
>
>Add the following line to .git/info/gitattributes:
>freeipa.spec.in  merge=union
>
>Docs & caveats: https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattributes.html#_built_in_merge_drivers
I would still prefer to have the changes in separate patches in a
patchset simply because it makes clearer and easier to handle in active
development.

When we push commits to the main git tree, we anyway push whole patchset
as one push operation. As result, anyone who pulls that tree, will get
consistent patchset -- be it another developer or continuous integration
machinery. For developers who touch spec files reduced context of the
changes in a pulled tree will also be helpful.

Besides that, you anyway will need to do manual adoption after
merge=union in order to get changelog entries in proper chronological
order and release numbering.


-- 
/ Alexander Bokovoy