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In the early days of Git, Perl was used quite prominently throughout the
project. This has changed significantly as almost all of the executables
we ship nowadays have eventually been rewritten in C. Only a handful of
subsystems remain that require Perl:
- gitweb, a read-only web interface.
- A couple of scripts that allow importing repositories from GNU Arch,
CVS and Subversion.
- git-send-email(1), which can be used to send mails.
- git-request-pull(1), which is used to request somebody to pull from
a URL by sending an email.
- git-filter-branch(1), which uses Perl with the `--state-branch`
option. This command is typically recommended against nowadays in
favor of git-filter-repo(1).
- Our Perl bindings for Git.
- The netrc Git credential helper.
None of these subsystems can really be considered to be part of the
"core" of Git, and an installation without them is fully functional.
It is more likely than not that an end user wouldn't even notice that
any features are missing if those tools weren't installed. But while
Perl nowadays very much is an optional dependency of Git, there is a
significant limitation when Perl isn't available: developers cannot run
our test suite.
Preceding commits have started to lift this restriction by removing the
strict dependency on Perl in many central parts of the test library. But
there are still many tests that rely on small Perl helpers to do various
different things.
Introduce a new PERL_TEST_HELPERS prerequisite that guards all tests
that require Perl. This prerequisite is explicitly different than the
preexisting PERL prerequisite:
- PERL records whether or not features depending on the Perl
interpreter are built.
- PERL_TEST_HELPERS records whether or not a Perl interpreter is
available for our tests.
By having these two separate prerequisites we can thus distinguish
between tests that inherently depend on Perl because the underlying
feature does, and those tests that depend on Perl because the test
itself is using Perl.
Adapt all tests to set the PERL_TEST_HELPERS prerequisite as needed.
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Git - fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
Git is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License version 2 (some parts of it are under different licenses, compatible with the GPLv2). It was originally written by Linus Torvalds with help of a group of hackers around the net.
Please read the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
Many Git online resources are accessible from https://git-scm.com/ including full documentation and Git related tools.
See Documentation/gittutorial.adoc to get started, then see
Documentation/giteveryday.adoc for a useful minimum set of commands, and
Documentation/git-<commandname>.adoc for documentation of each command.
If git has been correctly installed, then the tutorial can also be
read with man gittutorial or git help tutorial, and the
documentation of each command with man git-<commandname> or git help <commandname>.
CVS users may also want to read Documentation/gitcvs-migration.adoc
(man gitcvs-migration or git help cvs-migration if git is
installed).
The user discussion and development of Git take place on the Git mailing list -- everyone is welcome to post bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to git@vger.kernel.org (read Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission and Documentation/CodingGuidelines).
Those wishing to help with error message, usage and informational message
string translations (localization l10) should see po/README.md
(a po file is a Portable Object file that holds the translations).
To subscribe to the list, send an email to git+subscribe@vger.kernel.org (see https://subspace.kernel.org/subscribing.html for details). The mailing list archives are available at https://lore.kernel.org/git/, https://marc.info/?l=git and other archival sites.
Issues which are security relevant should be disclosed privately to the Git Security mailing list git-security@googlegroups.com.
The maintainer frequently sends the "What's cooking" reports that list the current status of various development topics to the mailing list. The discussion following them give a good reference for project status, development direction and remaining tasks.
The name "git" was given by Linus Torvalds when he wrote the very first version. He described the tool as "the stupid content tracker" and the name as (depending on your mood):
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks