In this section, we'll go over some commonly used Git commands that are relevant to CPython's workflow.
Contents
- Forking CPython GitHub Repository
- Cloning The Forked CPython Repository
- Listing the Remote Repositories
- Setting Up Your Name and Email Address
- Enabling
autocrlf
on Windows - Creating and Switching Branches
- Deleting Branches
- Staging and Committing Files
- Reverting Changes
- Stashing Changes
- Committing Changes
- Pushing Changes
- Creating a Pull Request
- Syncing With Upstream
- Applying a Patch from Mercurial to Git
- Downloading Other's Patches
- Accepting and Merging A Pull Request
- Backporting Merged Changes
- Editing a Pull Request Prior to Merging
You'll only need to do this once.
- Go to https://github.com/python/cpython.
- Press
Fork
on the top right. - When asked where to fork the repository, choose to fork it to your username.
- Your fork will be created at https://github.com/<username>/cpython.
You'll only need to do this once. From your command line:
git clone [email protected]:<username>/cpython.git
It is also recommended to configure an upstream
remote:
cd cpython
git remote add upstream [email protected]:python/cpython.git
You can also use SSH-based or HTTPS-based URLs.
To list the remote repositories that are configured, along with their URLs:
git remote -v
You should have two remotes: origin
pointing to your fork,
and upstream
pointing to the official CPython repository:
origin [email protected]:<your-username>/cpython.git (fetch)
origin [email protected]:<your-username>/cpython.git (push)
upstream [email protected]:python/cpython.git (fetch)
upstream [email protected]:python/cpython.git (push)
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email [email protected]
The --global
flag sets these globally,
--local
sets them only for the current project.
The autocrlf option will fix automatically any Windows-specific line endings. This should be enabled on Windows, since the public repository has a hook which will reject all changesets having the wrong line endings:
git config --global core.autocrlf input
Note
Never commit directly to the master
branch.
Create a new branch and switch to it:
# creates a new branch off master and switch to it
git checkout -b <branch-name> master
This is equivalent to:
# create a new branch off 'master', without checking it out
git branch <branch-name> master
# check out the branch
git checkout <branch-name>
To find the branch you are currently on:
git branch
The current branch will have an asterisk next to the branch name. Note, this will only list all of your local branches.
To list all the branches, including the remote branches:
git branch -a
To switch to a different branch:
git checkout <another-branch-name>
Other releases are just branches in the repository. For example, to work
on the 2.7 release from the upstream
remote:
git checkout -b 2.7 upstream/2.7
To delete a local branch that you no longer need:
git checkout master
git branch -D <branch-name>
To delete a remote branch:
git push origin -d <branch-name>
You may specify more than one branch for deletion.
To show the current changes:
git status
To stage the files to be included in your commit:
git add path/to/file1 path/to/file2 path/to/file3
To commit the files that have been staged (done in step 2):
git commit -m "bpo-XXXX: This is the commit message."
To revert changes to a file that has not been committed yet:
git checkout path/to/file
If the change has been committed, and now you want to reset it to whatever the origin is at:
git reset --hard HEAD
To stash away changes that are not ready to be committed yet:
git stash
To re-apply the last stashed change:
git stash pop
Add the files you want to commit:
git add <filename>
Commit the files:
git commit -m '<message>'
Once your changes are ready for a review or a pull request, you'll need to push them to the remote repository.
git checkout <branch-name>
git push origin <branch-name>
- Go to https://github.com/python/cpython.
- Press
New pull request
button. - Click
compare across forks
link. - Select the base fork:
python/cpython
and base branch:master
. - Select the head fork:
<username>/cpython
and base branch: the branch containing your changes. - Press
Create Pull Request
button.
Scenario:
- You forked the CPython repository some time ago.
- Time passes.
- There have been new commits made in upstream CPython repository.
- Your forked CPython repository is no longer up to date.
- You now want to update your forked CPython repository to be the same as upstream.
Solution:
git checkout master
git pull --rebase upstream master
git push origin master
The --rebase
option is only needed if you have local changes to the
branch.
Another scenario:
- You created
some-branch
some time ago. - Time passes.
- You made some commits to
some-branch
. - Meanwhile, there are recent changes from upstream CPython repository.
- You want to incorporate the recent changes from upstream into
some-branch
.
Solution:
git checkout some-branch
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/master
git push --force origin some-branch
Scenario:
- A Mercurial patch exists but there is no pull request for it.
Solution:
Download the patch locally.
Apply the patch:
git apply /path/to/issueNNNN-git.patch
If there are errors, update to a revision from when the patch was created and then try the
git apply
again:git checkout $(git rev-list -n 1 --before="yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss" master) git apply /path/to/issueNNNN-git.patch
If the patch still won't apply, then a patch tool will not be able to apply the patch and it will need to be re-implemented manually.
If the apply was successful, create a new branch and switch to it.
Stage and commit the changes.
If the patch was applied to an old revision, it needs to be updated and merge conflicts need to be resolved:
git rebase master git mergetool
Push the changes and open a pull request.
Scenario:
- A contributor made a pull request to CPython.
- Before merging it, you want to be able to test their changes locally.
On Unix and MacOS, set up the following git alias:
$ git config --global alias.pr '!sh -c "git fetch upstream pull/${1}/head:pr_${1} && git checkout pr_${1}" -'
On Windows, reverse the single (') and double (") quotes:
git config --global alias.pr "!sh -c 'git fetch upstream pull/${1}/head:pr_${1} && git checkout pr_${1}' -"
The alias only needs to be done once. After the alias is set up, you can get a local copy of a pull request as follows:
git pr <pr_number>
Note
hub command line utility makes this
workflow very easy. You can check out the branch by
hub pr checkout <pr_number> [<branch_name>]
.
This command configures remote URL for the branch too.
So you can git push
if the pull request author checked
"Allow edits from maintainers" when creating the pull request.
Pull requests can be accepted and merged by a Python Core Developer.
At the bottom of the pull request page, click the
Squash and merge
button.Replace the reference to GitHub pull request
#NNNN
withGH-NNNN
. If the title is too long, the pull request number can be added to the message body.Adjust and clean up the commit message.
Example of good commit message:
bpo-12345: Improve the spam module (GH-777) * Add method A to the spam module * Update the documentation of the spam module
Example of bad commit message:
bpo-12345: Improve the spam module (#777) * Improve the spam module * merge from master * adjust code based on review comment * rebased
Note
How to Write a Git Commit Message is a nice article describing how to write a good commit message.
- Press the
Confirm squash and merge
button.
A pull request may need to be backported into one of the maintenance branches
after it has been accepted and merged into master
. It is usually indicated
by the label needs backport to X.Y
on the pull request itself.
Use the utility script cherry_picker.py from the core-workflow repository to backport the commit.
The commit hash for backporting is the squashed commit that was merged to
the master
branch. On the merged pull request, scroll to the bottom of the
page. Find the event that says something like:
<coredeveloper> merged commit <commit_sha1> into python:master <sometime> ago.
By following the link to <commit_sha1>
, you will get the full commit hash.
Alternatively, the commit hash can also be obtained by the following git commands:
git fetch upstream
git rev-parse ":/bpo-12345"
The above commands will print out the hash of the commit containing
"bpo-12345"
as part of the commit message.
When formatting the commit message for a backport commit: leave the original one as is and delete the number of the backport pull request.
Example of good backport commit message:
bpo-12345: Improve the spam module (GH-777)
* Add method A to the spam module
* Update the documentation of the spam module
(cherry picked from commit 62adc55)
Example of bad backport commit message:
bpo-12345: Improve the spam module (GH-777) (#888)
* Add method A to the spam module
* Update the documentation of the spam module
When a pull request submitter has enabled the Allow edits from maintainers
option, Python Core Developers may decide to make any remaining edits needed
prior to merging themselves, rather than asking the submitter to do them. This
can be particularly appropriate when the remaining changes are bookkeeping
items like updating Misc/ACKS
.
To edit an open pull request that targets master
:
In the pull request page, under the description, there is some information about the contributor's fork and branch name that will be useful later:
<contributor> wants to merge 1 commit into python:master from <contributor>:<branch_name>
Fetch the pull request, using the :ref:`git pr <git_pr>` alias:
git pr <pr_number>
This will checkout the contributor's branch at
pr_XXX
.Make and commit your changes on the branch. For example, merge in changes made to
master
since the PR was submitted (any merge commits will be removed by the laterSquash and Merge
when accepting the change):git fetch upstream git merge upstream/master git add <filename> git commit -m "<commit message>"
Push the changes back to the contributor's PR branch:
git push [email protected]:<contributor>/cpython <pr_XXX>:<branch_name>
Optionally, :ref:`delete the PR branch <deleting_branches>`.