gpm-git: Local Git Package Management for Go

gpm is a tool for managing Go packages. gpm-git is a plugin that adds support for direct Git management of directories inside of a gpm-managed $GOPATH.

Use Cases

Using this plugin, you can use GPM to...

• Work with Git repos that are password protected (e.g. private Bitbucket repos).
• Use any git repo that git clone can use.
• Clone a full git repo into a local working copy, and modify it within the copy. (Not necessarily recommended, but possible).

Installation

Put gpm-git in your $PATH. You can do this easily by running make install.

TODO:

• Add homebrew support.
• Test on Linux.
• Add testing target.

Usage

gpm-git uses a special file called Gopath-Git to read the repos that it needs. This file differs slightly from the regular GPM Gopath file. It uses up to three fields separated by whitespace:

GIT_URL   GO_PKG_NAME   [VERSION]

• GIT_URL: The URL to the git repository.
• GO_PKG_NAME: The full name of the package in Go's package name format.
• VERSION: The git commit or reference.

Here's an example file:

# Get the tip of master of the foo/bar project
git@bitbucket.org:foo/bar bitbucket.org/foo/bar master
# This works, too
# git@bitbucket.org:foo/bar bitbucket.org/foo/bar

# Get a specific commit or tag off of foo/baz
git@bitbucket.org:foo/baz bitbucket.org/foo/baz 2feb1ef
git@bitbucket.org:foo/argh bitbucket.org/foo/argh 1.2.3

Once you have a Gopath-Git file, you can use gpm-git like this:

$ gpm git

The above will attempt to clone (or fetch --all if the clone exists) the given URL, and then place it in the appropriate location in .godeps.

Once you have a repo initialized, you can manage it directly by going into .godeps/src, or you can simply update the package by calling gpm git again.

Under the Hood

If you're interested in knowing how gpm-git works, here's the high-level overview:

1. It reads the Gopath-Git file line by line, breaking it into fields.
2. For each GIT_URL it creates a new package path in .godeps/src and then clones the git repository into it. It uses whichever version of git it finds on the $PATH.
3. If a VERSION is set, it checks out that particular version.

For performance reasons, re-running gpm git will not re-clone each repository. Instead it will git fetch --all. I did this because large git repos can take a really long time to download.

See Also

• gpm-local