Git (Get) it done right!
Practical Applied Version
Control for Drupal site
developers
Peter Chen - Stanford School of Engineering
Technical Webmaster
What is Version Control?
(why would I need it...)
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Your filesystem goes through frequent changes. i.e. any
website. From modified files to new files coming in and
old ones being deleted.
If you build any kind of application (CMS) and need to
keep track of “versions” of the filesystem, you need
version control.
If you need to share coding responsibilities or
maintenance of a codebase with another person, you
need version control.
If you want to look like a pro at managing your code,
keep a consistent history (with ease), and feel
comfortable handing it off to someone else, you need
version control.
Why aren't you using it today?
(some convenient excuses...)
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I’m getting by just fine without needing to share coding responsibilities with
anyone else
A bad experience with Subversion crashing scared me off.
I only need to make occasional upgrades to my module/theme packages,
and have only one or two css files that I edit.
It’s too hard (and I’m not that good at command line) to get started.
branching, merging, committing, clone, init, fetch, pull, push, origin, head?
Augh! I have enough trouble remembering drush commands alone and
when I see those code trees, I freak out.
Types of Version Control Systems
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Local only - keeps a local database of changes in your
local machine filesystem.
Centralized - (Subversion, CVS), require a connection
to a central server and “checkout”
Distributed - (Git, Mercurial) allow for local systems to
be “mirrors” of the central repo. You don’t need to be
connected to the central server to get work or commits
done.
What Git is and what it does
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small piece of software principally written for Linux.
http://git-scm.com/downloads
(mac: macports, homebrew, googlecode)
(windows: googlecode)
tracks all your files in it’s database. You have to add and remove
files into this tracking system and commit them.
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a single .git directory at the top of your filesystem “watches” the
changes going on and helps you deal with them at commit time.
“git status” will tell you what has been added, removed, modified,
etc. etc.
When you make a “commit.” Git records a “snapshot” of changes
to your filesystem and records an index number to it. You also write
a brief message about the commit.
Commit frequently!
Where it all happens
global settings are in ~/.gitconfig
in each local .git folder, you can have a local config file. (On
windows, this is usually in the default C:\Documents and
Settings\$USER directory)
• most activity happens locally. Frequent commits,
additions, and changes.
• When you’re ready to share your code with others in
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your team, or want to get it ready for deployment to your
servers, you can “push” it to your "remote"
So how do I get a "remote" and how do I connect with it?
SSH, GitHub, and remotes
SSH - authenticated protocol for communicating between
two machines by using a private/public key pair. You put
the public key on the “shared repo” machine (github,
codeplane, bitbucket. etc.) so that it recognized your
machine when you talk to it and can move files and info
back and forth.
Github has an excellent starter guide that helps you get
git installed and set up ssh keys on your machine
(http://help.github.com/set-up-git-redirect)
There are other 3rd party services like codeplane and
bitbucket that you can set up a centralized repo with.
But if you have a linux server or host somewhere, it can
be relatively easy to set up a git remote
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Git started - working with git locally
• invoke git init
• now add files
• now commit files
• add? commit? What does it mean?
• git status
• git log
• Congrats! We just made a git repo!
Going the other way - grabbing a
repo from a remote
git clone - do this just initially
protocols: ssh, http://, git://
Fine... now how do I do this with
Drupal?
How a remote gets involved
Going from local to remote to a deployment (or
production) system
git fetch origin master
o git pull origin master
o git push origin master
o
Other important stuff to know
The .gitignore file
Other git commands that will become useful
quite quickly
checkout
branch
merge
tag
Tools that can make Git easier
For Mac:
GitHub for mac (http://mac.github.com/)
SourceTree
(http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/)
For Windows:
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Git for Windows (http://msysgit.github.com/)
TortoiseGit (http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
If you develop with an IDE, most modern IDEs such as
Eclipse, Netbeans, Komodo, XCode, Aptana, Zend all
have plugins for GIT and other Version Control software
Recommended practices on using
this with Drupal
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have a .gitignore file
add site/all/default (or wherever your
settings.php file will reside) to it
files directory should be ignored
other automated files that aren’t part of your
“code base” like the backup_migrate
backups destination, security review report
destination, etc. etc.
Some Stanford sites specific
recommendations
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Yes, git is installed on afs.
First, set up your ssh key in your afs home directory.
You should probably exclude drupal core if your site is
managed by sites.stanford.edu
Thus git init at your sites directory
have a .gitignore file at the sites directory
exclude:
 sites/default*
 wherever your settings.php file is (if not
sites/default)
 wherever your files, backup_migrate destination
directory are.
Some Stanford sites specific
recommendations (2)
Recommended workflow for a Stanford Site:
1. Set up ssh keypair in your afs home directory
2. Get your Drupal (group, dept) site in afs
3. Build your site locally, use git init to keep track of what you're doing (set
.git and .gitignore up in your sites directory)
4. Set up your remote repo with a git hosting service and do your initial git push
to get your code up there.
5. In afs, on your site, mv (do not delete) your original sites directory
(recommend you back it to your home directory somewhere) and replace it with
your git managed sites directory with git clone
6. Now restore settings.php from the original sites directory along with files and
any other resources from the original sites directory that you still need.
Good resources on practicing and
doing more on git
Github: http://github.com
The ProGit book (A-press) but also
online at http://git-scm.com/book
http://gitimmersion.com - a great
tutorial that will get you far and teach
some great shortcuts.
Thank You
Slides will be available on
http://drupalcamp.stanford.edu
or email me at ptchen@stanford.edu