Re: [boost] Post-git forking process

Subject: Re: [boost] Post-git forking process
From: Nathan Crookston (nathan.crookston_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-11-22 18:55:50

Nathan Crookston wrote:
> Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote:
>> You should fork
>>
>>  A. the super repository. boostorg/boost, which will give you a way to
>> modify which submodules are used;
>>  B. the specific library
>> Fork them either on github or in a place available to your team, as long as
>> they can access it it's fine.
>>
>> Then locally:
>> 1. clone your boost super fork;
>>  2. in this clone, change the address of the submodule you want to use your
>> own library fork with;
>
> Just to clarify this step, since the other urls in the .gitmodules
> file are relative, you'll need to make them absolute and point them to
> the boostorg ones (unless you want to fork *all* the boostorg repos).
>
>>  3. this is a change, commit it, then push it up to your fork;
>>  4. now your boost super repo fork is pointing to your sub library fork as
>> a submodule, instead of the official repository of this library;
>>  5. this one I'm not sure is necessary: now pull from your fork and make
>> sure your local version is using the right submodule address (to your
>> library fork);
>>  6. each time you want to upgrade any of these forks, you'll need to pull
>> from the original repositories and then merge with your changes;
>>  7. if the forks are on github, indeed you can easily submit pull requests
>> but still continue with your version if it's not accepted yet or ever;
>
>
> With that, I think it should work, though I'll also be unable to test
> for a couple days.

Okay, I actually just tried this and it worked just fine.  My steps were:

1. Fork boostorg/boost
2. Clone *just* boostorg/boost, not all the sub-projects (as this will fail):
 - `git clone git_at_[hidden]:boostorg/boost.git modular-boost`
2.5 (Optional) Create a branch (I called mine 'updated')
3. Edit .gitmodules and change all the relative URLs to absolute, SSH
or HTTPS (whichever kind you or your company firewall likes).
 - I ran `:%s/\.\./https:\/\/github.com\/boostorg\/utility.git/g` in
vim to use https.
3. Fork the particular repos you want to apply patches to:
 - For this example, I forked 'range'.
4. Edit the 'range' url line in boost/.gitmodules to point to your fork:
 - I changed the https://github.com/boostorg/range.git to
git_at_[hidden]:ncrookston/range.git.
5. Commit your gitmodules change, push it to your fork:
 - `git commit -a -m "create local boostorg"; git push origin updated`
6. Now get all the submodules:
 - `git submodule update --init`.

You should see it fetch most libraries from boostorg, but those you've
edited will be registered with the URL you gave in step 4.

If you need to make a fresh clone it's straightforward:
If you created a new branch:
 - `git clone -b updated --recursive
git_at_[hidden]:ncrookston/boost.git modular_boost`
If you did not:
 - `git clone --recursive git_at_[hidden]:ncrookston/boost.git modular_boost`

HTH,
Nate