Re: git: how to figure out with a script what the last commit on remote repo is without fetching it
Rusi Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:
> On Monday, September 8, 2014 4:20:02 PM UTC+5:30, lee wrote:
>> Jonathan Dowland writes:
>
>> > On Sat, Sep 06, 2014 at 12:04:44AM +0200, lee wrote:
>> >> how would I figure out what the last commit to a remote repo was without
>> >> first fetching or pulling the remote repo?
>> > This is an interesting question and I don't know the answer to it, perhaps it
>> > is not yet possible. However, you might be able to solve the problem you have
>> > in a different way: do you have write access to the remote repository? If so,
>> > you should look into installing a post-update hook which will email you upon
>> > commits being made to that repository.
>
>> Unfortunately, I don't have write access to the remote repos I want to
>> be informed about.
>
>> Perhaps there's a mailing list for git ... If it turns out that what
>> I'm trying isn't possible, I'll make feature request.
>
> This is a nice list to ask:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/git-users
How would I subscribe to this list?
> However I dont think this is a reasonable thing to ask
What is unreasonable about wanting to get informed automatically about
the existence of new commits without having to go to unreasonable
lengths to obtain this information?
> [I must be missing something but...]
> It seems analogous to this scenario:
> I phone you at (your) 6 am and ask "Lee are you awake?"
> If you answer, you are awake.
> But I want to find out without waking you... Is that possible/feasible?
> [As I said I must be missing something]
Yes, you're missing that:
+ because I don't want to be woken up by arbitrary phone calls at
unreasonable times, you are put into a waiting loop which stalls you
for an unpredictable amount of time when you call me, with an
undetermined risk that I might somehow get access to your brain and
reprogram it without your knowledge via this connection
+ you don't know whether I'm awake or not when I don't answer or when
you do or don't get into the waiting loop
+ if you get beyond the waiting loop, you have to receive unpredictable
amounts of data which you need to somehow examine in order to
determine whether I'm awake or not
I suppose you'd be looking for something like an immediate, direct
answer which is simply either "yes" or "no", wouldn't you?
Differently put, you don't need to wake me up because the information
you're looking for is already available automatically: I have a sensor
in my bed which detects my sleep-status and puts a file telling you the
status onto my web server.
The problem is that you can't just get the information when you connect to my
web server because you need to:
+ download all the files I might have on it (which can currently be
up to half a terrabyte, but you don't know this)
+ go through that half terrabyte (or how much it has actually been) of
data and somehow find out what my sleep-status is
This is what I'm calling "unreasonable lengths" and what I'm trying to
avoid having to do when figuring out if there have been new commits to a
git repo.
Why can't I simply ask the (server of the) remote repo "when/what was
the last commit?". Why should I have to transfer large or huge amounts
of data to get an information which doesn't need to take more than 4
bytes (i. e. a unix timestamp)?
--
Knowledge is volatile and fluid. Software is power.
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