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| author | Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> | 2010-03-28 23:33:50 +0530 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | 2010-04-18 13:55:41 -0700 |
| commit | 00b84e9dbfa6fabbac971dd70bc5a44802b0c36e (patch) | |
| tree | ceb93f4c3c11e3d853b04756d11f5428a2dcd357 /Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt | |
| parent | 11766ca4a89ba960271e94281463d1b44654ca3b (diff) | |
| download | git-00b84e9dbfa6fabbac971dd70bc5a44802b0c36e.tar.gz git-00b84e9dbfa6fabbac971dd70bc5a44802b0c36e.tar.xz | |
Documentation/remote-helpers: Rewrite description
Rewrite the description section to describe what exactly remote
helpers are and the need for them. Also mention the curl family of
remote helpers as an example.
[jc: with readability fixes from Jonathan squashed in]
Signed-off-by: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt | 33 |
1 files changed, 27 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt b/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt index 1b5f61aa0..9d86c2679 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ git-remote-helpers(1) NAME ---- -git-remote-helpers - Helper programs for interoperation with remote git +git-remote-helpers - Helper programs to interact with remote repositories SYNOPSIS -------- @@ -12,11 +12,32 @@ SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION ----------- -These programs are normally not used directly by end users, but are -invoked by various git programs that interact with remote repositories -when the repository they would operate on will be accessed using -transport code not linked into the main git binary. Various particular -helper programs will behave as documented here. +Remote helper programs are normally not used directly by end users, +but they are invoked by git when it needs to interact with remote +repositories git does not support natively. A given helper will +implement a subset of the capabilities documented here. When git +needs to interact with a repository using a remote helper, it spawns +the helper as an independent process, sends commands to the helper's +standard input, and expects results from the helper's standard +output. Because a remote helper runs as an independent process from +git, there is no need to re-link git to add a new helper, nor any +need to link the helper with the implementation of git. + +Every helper must support the "capabilities" command, which git will +use to determine what other commands the helper will accept. Other +commands generally concern facilities like discovering and updating +remote refs, transporting objects between the object database and +the remote repository, and updating the local object store. + +Helpers supporting the 'fetch' capability can discover refs from the +remote repository and transfer objects reachable from those refs to +the local object store. Helpers supporting the 'push' capability can +transfer local objects to the remote repository and update remote refs. + +Git comes with a "curl" family of remote helpers, that handle various +transport protocols, such as 'git-remote-http', 'git-remote-https', +'git-remote-ftp' and 'git-remote-ftps'. They implement the capabilities +'fetch', 'option', and 'push'. COMMANDS -------- |