Re: git: how to figure out with a script what the last commit on remote repo is without fetching it
Tony van der Hoff <tony@vanderhoff.org> writes:
>> 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)?
>>
>>
> It seems to me that you're approaching this from the wrong end.
>
> What you're asking for is very easily set up by the repository owner, by
> setting git up to emit an email to (say) a mailing list after each
> commit/recieve/update, by configuring a hook.
That would probably be better than a potentially large number of people
polling the repo to find out about new commits.
> If he hasn't done that, then you could try asking him to do so; it's not
> git's problem.
I don't even know who the owner is, and I haven't seen any information
saying that I could subscribe to a mailing list to be notified about
commits. Gits' problem is that there's no simple and reliable way to
find out about new commits when the repo is not set up to publish this
information by itself.
> But then, perhaps, the repository owner doesn't want to publish that
> data, for whatever reason. Git will respect that choice.
The repo can be cloned and fetched from by anyone. Saying that its
owner might not want to publish new commits doesn't exactly apply in
this case because data about new commits is already being published that
way.
--
Knowledge is volatile and fluid. Software is power.
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