Thursday, April 10, 2014

Git subtree to manage vim plugins

I found those blogs http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/alternatives-to-git-submodule-git-subtree and http://endot.org/2011/05/18/git-submodules-vs-subtrees-for-vim-plugins/ about how to use Git subtree. It seems straight forward, but I actually encountered a lot of errors before I successfully created one.
  • You need to create a git repository using 'git init' in the dir you want to have all plugins before running 'git subtree'.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add --prefix ./vim-pathogen https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master --squash
    fatal: Not a git repository (or any parent up to mount point /home)
    Stopping at filesystem boundary (GIT_DISCOVERY_ACROSS_FILESYSTEM not set).
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git init
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/ben/git/vim-plugins/.git/
    
  • You have to have at least one commit.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add --prefix ./vim-pathogen https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master --squash
    fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
    Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
    'git  [...] -- [...]'
    Working tree has modifications.  Cannot add.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ vi README.md
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git add .
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git commit -m "initial commit"
    [master (root-commit) 70de380] initial commit
     1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
     create mode 100644 README.md
    
  • Then you might see this error. What's wrong? Don't use any path './'. I tried '$PWD/vim-pathogen', the same error. I'm using Git 1.8.3 on Fedora 19. Not sure it is a version issue or not.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add --prefix ./vim-pathogen https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master 
    git fetch https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master
    warning: no common commits
    remote: Counting objects: 499, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (235/235), done.
    remote: Total 499 (delta 148), reused 499 (delta 148)
    Receiving objects: 100% (499/499), 82.10 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
    Resolving deltas: 100% (148/148), done.
    From https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    error: Invalid path './vim-pathogen/CONTRIBUTING.markdown'
    error: Invalid path './vim-pathogen/README.markdown'
    error: Invalid path './vim-pathogen/autoload/pathogen.vim'
    error: pathspec 'vim-pathogen' did not match any file(s) known to git.
    
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add --prefix vim-pathogen https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master 
    git fetch https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git master
    From https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Added dir 'vim-pathogen'
    
  • You can define a repository using 'git remote add', then use name instead of the url.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git remote add hive https://github.com/autowitch/hive.vim.git
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add -P hive.vim hive master
    git fetch hive master
    From https://github.com/autowitch/hive.vim
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Added dir 'hive.vim'
    
  • You may not use 'tabular/master' unless you fetch tabular.
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git remote add tabular https://github.com/godlygeek/tabular.git
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add -P tabular tabular/master
    'tabular/master' does not refer to a commit
    
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git fetch tabular
    warning: no common commits
    remote: Reusing existing pack: 131, done.
    remote: Total 131 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Receiving objects: 100% (131/131), 32.36 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
    Resolving deltas: 100% (48/48), done.
    From https://github.com/godlygeek/tabular
     * [new branch]      gtabularize -> tabular/gtabularize
     * [new branch]      master     -> tabular/master
     * [new branch]      pattern_reuse -> tabular/pattern_reuse
     * [new branch]      trim_1st_field -> tabular/trim_1st_field
    [ben@localhost vim-plugins]$ git subtree add -P tabular tabular/master
    Added dir 'tabular'
    
  • create a file under ~/git/vim-plugins/.vimrc like below. Then make a symlink to ~/.vimrc.
    source ~/git/vim-plugins/vim-pathogen/autoload/pathogen.vim
    execute pathogen#infect('~/git/vim-plugins/{}')
    
    syntax on
    filetype plugin indent on
    set sw=2
    
    augroup filetypedetect
      au BufNewFile,BufRead *.pig set filetype=pig syntax=pig
      au BufNewFile,BufRead *.hql set filetype=hive syntax=hive
    augroup END
    
  • qgit works with subtree.
  • Because you have to add '--prefix name' in subtree command, you cannot pull all repos. There is not 'git subtree pull-all' yet, see http://ruleant.blogspot.nl/2013/06/git-subtree-module-with-gittrees-config.html.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for your post.
    I too tripped over the fact that Git in combination with PowerShell won't accept backwards slashes when defining the directory of the subtree.

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