Documentation / howto / rebuild-from-update-hook.txton commit Merge branch 'kh/commit' (31cbb5d)
   1Subject: [HOWTO] Using post-update hook
   2Message-ID: <7vy86o6usx.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
   3From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
   4Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:19:10 -0700
   5Abstract: 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
   9The pages under http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
  10are built from Documentation/ directory of the git.git project
  11and needed to be kept up-to-date.  The www.kernel.org/ servers
  12are mirrored and I was told that the origin of the mirror is on
  13the machine $some.kernel.org, on which I was given an account
  14when I took over git maintainership from Linus.
  15
  16The directories relevant to this how-to are these two:
  17
  18    /pub/scm/git/git.git/       The public git repository.
  19    /pub/software/scm/git/docs/ The HTML documentation page.
  20
  21So I made a repository to generate the documentation under my
  22home directory over there.
  23
  24    $ cd
  25    $ mkdir doc-git && cd doc-git
  26    $ git clone /pub/scm/git/git.git/ docgen
  27
  28What needs to happen is to update the $HOME/doc-git/docgen/
  29working tree, build HTML docs there and install the result in
  30/pub/software/scm/git/docs/ directory.  So I wrote a little
  31script:
  32
  33    $ cat >dododoc.sh <<\EOF
  34    #!/bin/sh
  35    cd $HOME/doc-git/docgen || exit
  36
  37    unset GIT_DIR
  38
  39    git pull /pub/scm/git/git.git/ master &&
  40    cd Documentation &&
  41    make install-webdoc
  42    EOF
  43
  44Initially I used to run this by hand whenever I push into the
  45public git repository.  Then I did a cron job that ran twice a
  46day.  The current round uses the post-update hook mechanism,
  47like this:
  48
  49    $ cat >/pub/scm/git/git.git/hooks/post-update <<\EOF
  50    #!/bin/sh
  51    #
  52    # An example hook script to prepare a packed repository for use over
  53    # dumb transports.
  54    #
  55    # To enable this hook, make this file executable by "chmod +x post-update".
  56
  57    case " $* " in
  58    *' refs/heads/master '*)
  59            echo $HOME/doc-git/dododoc.sh | at now
  60            ;;
  61    esac
  62    exec git-update-server-info
  63    EOF
  64    $ chmod +x /pub/scm/git/git.git/hooks/post-update
  65
  66There are four things worth mentioning:
  67
  68 - The update-hook is run after the repository accepts a "git
  69   push", under my user privilege.  It is given the full names
  70   of refs that have been updated as arguments.  My post-update
  71   runs the dododoc.sh script only when the master head is
  72   updated.
  73
  74 - When update-hook is run, GIT_DIR is set to '.' by the calling
  75   receive-pack.  This is inherited by the dododoc.sh run via
  76   the "at" command, and needs to be unset; otherwise, "git
  77   pull" it does into $HOME/doc-git/docgen/ repository would not
  78   work correctly.
  79
  80 - The stdout of update hook script is not connected to git
  81   push; I run the heavy part of the command inside "at", to
  82   receive the execution report via e-mail.
  83
  84 - This is still crude and does not protect against simultaneous
  85   make invocations stomping on each other.  I would need to add
  86   some locking mechanism for this.