1 Subject: [HOWTO] Using post-update hook
2 Message-ID: <7vy86o6usx.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
3 From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
4 Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:19:10 -0700
5 Abstract: In this how-to article, JC talks about how he
6 uses the post-update hook to automate git documentation page
7 shown at http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/.
8 Content-type: text/asciidoc
10 How to rebuild from update hook
11 ===============================
13 The pages under http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
14 are built from Documentation/ directory of the git.git project
15 and needed to be kept up-to-date. The www.kernel.org/ servers
16 are mirrored and I was told that the origin of the mirror is on
17 the machine $some.kernel.org, on which I was given an account
18 when I took over git maintainership from Linus.
20 The directories relevant to this how-to are these two:
22 /pub/scm/git/git.git/ The public git repository.
23 /pub/software/scm/git/docs/ The HTML documentation page.
25 So I made a repository to generate the documentation under my
26 home directory over there.
29 $ mkdir doc-git && cd doc-git
30 $ git clone /pub/scm/git/git.git/ docgen
32 What needs to happen is to update the $HOME/doc-git/docgen/
33 working tree, build HTML docs there and install the result in
34 /pub/software/scm/git/docs/ directory. So I wrote a little
37 $ cat >dododoc.sh <<\EOF
39 cd $HOME/doc-git/docgen || exit
43 git pull /pub/scm/git/git.git/ master &&
48 Initially I used to run this by hand whenever I push into the
49 public git repository. Then I did a cron job that ran twice a
50 day. The current round uses the post-update hook mechanism,
53 $ cat >/pub/scm/git/git.git/hooks/post-update <<\EOF
56 # An example hook script to prepare a packed repository for use over
59 # To enable this hook, make this file executable by "chmod +x post-update".
62 *' refs/heads/master '*)
63 echo $HOME/doc-git/dododoc.sh | at now
66 exec git-update-server-info
68 $ chmod +x /pub/scm/git/git.git/hooks/post-update
70 There are four things worth mentioning:
72 - The update-hook is run after the repository accepts a "git
73 push", under my user privilege. It is given the full names
74 of refs that have been updated as arguments. My post-update
75 runs the dododoc.sh script only when the master head is
78 - When update-hook is run, GIT_DIR is set to '.' by the calling
79 receive-pack. This is inherited by the dododoc.sh run via
80 the "at" command, and needs to be unset; otherwise, "git
81 pull" it does into $HOME/doc-git/docgen/ repository would not
84 - The stdout of update hook script is not connected to git
85 push; I run the heavy part of the command inside "at", to
86 receive the execution report via e-mail.
88 - This is still crude and does not protect against simultaneous
89 make invocations stomping on each other. I would need to add
90 some locking mechanism for this.