STG(1) StGit Manual STG(1)
NAME
stg - Manage stacks of patches using the Git content tracker
SYNOPSIS
stg [--version | --help]
stg [--help <command> | <command> --help]
stg <command> [COMMAND OPTIONS] [ARGS]
DESCRIPTION
StGit (Stacked Git) is an application that provides a convenient way to maintain a patch stack on top of a Git branch:
o The topmost (most recent) commits of a branch are given names. Such a named commit is called a patch.
o After making changes to the worktree, you can incorporate the changes into an existing patch; this is called refreshing. You may
refresh any patch, not just the topmost one.
o You can pop a patch: temporarily putting it aside, so that the patch below it becomes the topmost patch. Later you may push it onto the
stack again. Pushing and popping can be used to reorder patches.
o You can easily rebase your patch stack on top of any other Git commit. (The base of a patch stack is the most recent Git commit that is
not an StGit patch.) For example, if you started making patches on top of someone else's branch, and that person publishes an updated
branch, you can take all your patches and apply them on top of the updated branch.
o As you would expect, changing what is below a patch can cause that patch to no longer apply cleanly -- this can occur when you reorder
patches, rebase patches, or refresh a non-topmost patch. StGit uses Git's rename-aware three-way merge capability to automatically fix
up what it can; if it still fails, it lets you manually resolve the conflict just like you would resolve a merge conflict in Git.
o The patch stack is just some extra metadata attached to regular Git commits, so you can continue to use most Git tools along with
StGit.
Typical uses
Tracking branch
Tracking changes from a remote branch, while maintaining local modifications against that branch, possibly with the intent of sending
some patches upstream. You can modify your patch stack as much as you want, and when your patches are finally accepted upstream, the
permanent recorded Git history will contain just the final sequence of patches, and not the messy sequence of edits that produced them.
Commands of interest in this workflow are e.g. linkstgsub:rebase[] and linkstgsub:mail[].
Development branch
Even if you have no "upstream" to send patches to, you can use StGit as a convenient way to modify the recent history of a Git branch.
For example, instead of first committing change A, then change B, and then A2 to fix A because it wasn't quite right, you could
incorporate the fix directly into A. This way of working results in a much more readable Git history than if you had immortalized every
misstep you made on your way to the right solution.
Commands of interest in this workflow are e.g. linkstgsub:uncommit[], which can be used to move the patch stack base downwards -- i.e.,
turn Git commits into StGit patches after the fact -- and linkstgsub:commit[], its inverse.
For more information, see the tutorial[1].
Specifying patches
Many StGit commands take references to StGit patches as arguments. Patches in the stack are identified with short names, each of which must
be unique in the stack.
Patches in the current branch are simply referred to by their name. Some commands allow you to specify a patch in another branch of the
repository; this is done by prefixing the patch name with the branch name and a colon (e.g. otherbranch:thatpatch).
Specifying commits
Some StGit commands take Git commits as arguments. StGit accepts all commit expressions that Git does; and in addition, a patch name
(optionally prefixed by a branch name and a colon) is allowed in this context. The usual Git modifiers ^ and ~ are also allowed; e.g.,
abranch:apatch~2 is the grandparent of the commit that is the patch apatch on branch abranch.
Instead of a patch name, you can say {base} to refer to the stack base (the commit just below the bottommost patch); so, abranch:{base} is
the base of the stack in branch abranch.
If you need to pass a given StGit reference to a Git command, linkstg:id[] will convert it to a Git commit id for you.
OPTIONS
The following generic option flags are available. Additional options are available for (and documented with) the different subcommands.
--version
Prints the StGit version, as well as version of other components used, such as Git and Python.
--help
Prints the synopsis and a list of all subcommands. If an StGit subcommand is given, prints the synposis for that subcommand.
STGIT COMMANDS
We divide StGit commands in thematic groups, according to the primary type of object they create or change.
Here is a short description of each command. A more detailed description is available in individual command manpages. Those manpages are
named stg-<command>(1).
Repository commands
linkstgsub:clone[]
Make a local clone of a remote repository
linkstgsub:id[]
Print the git hash value of a StGit reference
Stack (branch) commands
linkstgsub:branch[]
Branch operations: switch, list, create, rename, delete, ...
linkstgsub:clean[]
Delete the empty patches in the series
linkstgsub:commit[]
Permanently store the applied patches into the stack base
linkstgsub:float[]
Push patches to the top, even if applied
linkstgsub:goto[]
Push or pop patches to the given one
linkstgsub:hide[]
Hide a patch in the series
linkstgsub:init[]
Initialise the current branch for use with StGIT
linkstgsub:log[]
Display the patch changelog
linkstgsub:next[]
Print the name of the next patch
linkstgsub:patches[]
Show the applied patches modifying a file
linkstgsub:pop[]
Pop one or more patches from the stack
linkstgsub:prev[]
Print the name of the previous patch
linkstgsub:publish[]
Push the stack changes to a merge-friendly branch
linkstgsub:pull[]
Pull changes from a remote repository
linkstgsub:push[]
Push one or more patches onto the stack
linkstgsub:rebase[]
Move the stack base to another point in history
linkstgsub:redo[]
Undo the last undo operation
linkstgsub:repair[]
Fix StGit metadata if branch was modified with git commands
linkstgsub:reset[]
Reset the patch stack to an earlier state
linkstgsub:series[]
Print the patch series
linkstgsub:sink[]
Send patches deeper down the stack
linkstgsub:squash[]
Squash two or more patches into one
linkstgsub:top[]
Print the name of the top patch
linkstgsub:uncommit[]
Turn regular git commits into StGit patches
linkstgsub:undo[]
Undo the last operation
linkstgsub:unhide[]
Unhide a hidden patch
Patch commands
linkstgsub:delete[]
Delete patches
linkstgsub:edit[]
edit a patch description or diff
linkstgsub:export[]
Export patches to a directory
linkstgsub:files[]
Show the files modified by a patch (or the current patch)
linkstgsub:fold[]
Integrate a GNU diff patch into the current patch
linkstgsub:import[]
Import a GNU diff file as a new patch
linkstgsub:mail[]
Send a patch or series of patches by e-mail
linkstgsub:new[]
Create a new, empty patch
linkstgsub:pick[]
Import a patch from a different branch or a commit object
linkstgsub:refresh[]
Generate a new commit for the current patch
linkstgsub:rename[]
Rename a patch
linkstgsub:show[]
Show the commit corresponding to a patch
linkstgsub:sync[]
Synchronise patches with a branch or a series
Index/worktree commands
linkstgsub:diff[]
Show the tree diff
linkstgsub:status[]
Show the tree status
CONFIGURATION MECHANISM
StGit uses the same configuration mechanism as Git. See linkman:git[7] for more details.
TEMPLATES
A number of StGit commands make use of template files to provide useful default texts to be edited by the user. These <name>.tmpl template
files are searched in the following directories:
1. $GITDIR/ (in practice, the .git/ directory in your repository)
2. $HOME/.stgit/templates/
3. /usr/share/stgit/templates/
NOTES
1. the tutorial
[set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/tutorial.html
StGit 03/13/2012 STG(1)