Documentation
Mailing lists and collaborative tools
- Project web page: has to come
- General mailing list: pCT@uib.no
- Slack project
Software installation
Software repository
We use the gitlab server hosted by IT of University of Bergen. We start with a repository per work package (wp). As there is overlap in terms of software, this structure might change in the future. Log in with your UiB account, then the administrators will give you access to the pCT group. If you don't have an account yet, get in contact with the group over the general channels. There might be an admin mailing list later.
Further information:
Gitlab best practice
Development workflow
Every logged-in user can access the main repository, however only a small group of administrators has write access. To contribute, a user creates a fork from the repository. This is a copy where a single developer or a group of developers have full access.
The main repository has the following branches:
- production: the latest production code, in this branch we have release tags
- master: the latest stable release
- dev: the development branch
In addition to those main branches there can be feature branches where development happens detached from the main branches. A feature branch is based on the dev branch and has a limited lifetime.
Creating a project fork
A project fork or repository fork is a copy of the original repository where a user or a group of users has/have full control. All development in our project is carried out in the individual forks. Branches of project forks are merged back into the main repository by merge requests, preferably via fast forward merges. That requires developers to rebase project forks to the main repository and resolve all conflicts before requesting a merge.
Your repository fork is your sandbox, you can do whatever you want. Unless you have your own rules at hand right now you can apply the following:
- leave the master branch in sync with the main repository, do not make commits to it
- commit your changes to the dev branch
- if you start a new feature, and it's expected to take a while, make a feature branch, e.g. dev-feature and give the feature a name
- synchronize regularly to the main repository by rebasing (tutorial coming soon)
Making local development copy
From development fork
Clone directly from your development fork, replace user and wpn (e.g. wp7) appropriately. Note: the gitlab offers two modes for the link to be cloned, you can choose ssh (default setting) or https. If you can not clone with the proposed default link, try option https://.
git clone https://user@gitlab.uib.no/user/wpn.git
This will create a local directory wpn, an optional argument after the link allows to change the directory name, e.g.
git clone https://user@gitlab.uib.no/user/wpn.git mywork
The remote repository will get the identifier origin in your local clone, check with
git remote -v
From the main repository
The main repository is cloned like
git clone https://gitlab.uib.no/pct/wpn.git
The upstream link can be changed later to any other repository like e.g. a development fork as follows (given the clone directory is the current working directory)
git remote set-url origin https://user@gitlab.uib.no/user/wpn.git
As a more advanced option, multiple remote repositories can be added to the clone. All remote repositories are referenced through their identifiers, e.g. origin pointing to the fork and pctgroup pointing to main repository.
git remote add pctgroup https://gitlab.uib.no/pct/wpn.git
Pushing to development fork
Once you have added commits to e.g. the dev branch, those commits can be pushed upstream to the fork (if origin refers to the fork)
git push origin dev
Or using the direct link
git push https://user@gitlab.uib.no/user/wpn.git dev
Pull/Merge request
All updates to the main repository are made via merge requests (github refers to them as pull requests). A merge request requires the code update to be in a mergable branch in a development fork.
Merge request are also used widely to share work-in-progress with your colleagues and for code reviews. Mark such Merge request with "WIP:".
Preparation
In order to avoid conflicts, first the fork has to be updated to the main repository. The idea behind this is that all potential conflicts can be resolved by the developer with the best knowledge about the matter, while the maintainer can simple merge fast-forward.
Description coming soon ...
Example workflow for a Merge request
- Go to your gitlab user space at https://gitlab.uib.no/user (replace user appropriately.
- Find the project fork, e.g. in the list of projects associated with you from the upper main menu.
- In the line with the many columns regarding the repository, click on the "+"-symbol on the right hand side and choose "New merge request"
- Select project and branch for both source and target, and click "Compare branches and continue"
- Review the list of commits in this merge request, give it a descriptive title and description, pick an assignee
- Submit the merge request
Importing an external package
The project will use a couple of external packages which are hosted in a different master repository. Copies of such external packages can be added to the gitlab server under our project group to provide a consistent package.
Here is a proposed workflow for importing a package which is already hosted in git.
- Create new repository in the pCT group or ask for creation, lets call it newPackage
- Fork the repository to your user space
- Clone the package you want to import
git clone <some_external_link> newPackage # we give it the new name
cd newPackage
- Redirect upstream URL to the fork in your gitlab user space
git remote set-url origin https://user@gitlab.uib.no/user/newPackage.git
- Now make a forced push (option -f) to import the repository to your fork
git push -f origin
- Create merge request to branch import (if not existing, master or any other appropriate branch) by following the instructions Pull/Merge request
