ITK/Git

ITK version tracking and development is hosted by Git.

Official Repository

One may browse the repository online using the Gitweb interface at http://itk.org/gitweb.

Cloning

One may clone the repository using git clone through the native git protocol:

$ git clone git://itk.org/ITK.git

or through the (less efficient) http protocol:

$ git clone http://itk.org/ITK.git

All further commands work inside the local copy of the repository created by the clone:

$ cd ITK

If you want to run the tests you also need to clone the Testing/Data submodule:

$ git submodule update --init

For ITKApps the URLs are

git://itk.org/ITKApps.git
http://itk.org/ITKApps.git

Branches

At the time of this writing the repository has the following branches:

• master: Development (default)
• nightly-master: Follows master, updated at 01:00 UTC
• hooks: Local commit hooks (place in .git/hooks)
• dashboard: Dashboard script (see below)

Release branches converted from CVS have been artificially merged into master. Actual releases have tags named by the release version number.

Development

We provide here a brief introduction to ITK development with Git. See the Resources page for further information such as Git tutorials.

Introduction

We require all commits in ITK to record valid author/committer name and email information. Use git config to introduce yourself to Git:

$ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
$ git config --global user.email "you@yourdomain.com"

Note that "Your Name" is your real name (e.g. "John Doe", not "jdoe"). While you're at it, optionally enable color output from Git commands:

$ git config --global color.ui auto

If less displays strange characters and no color, your LESS environment variable may already be set. You can override the less options with:

$ git config --global core.pager "less -FXRS"

The --global option stores the configuration settings in ~/.gitconfig in your home directory so that they apply to all repositories.

Hooks

The hooks branch provides local commit hooks to be placed in .git/hooks. It is shared by many public.kitware.com repositories.

See the general hooks information page to set up your local hooks.

Workflow

We've chosen to approximate our previous CVS-based development workflow after the initial move to Git, at least while things get settled. The basic rule is to rebase your work on origin/master before pushing:

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/master

or

git pull --rebase

The server will refuse your push if it contains any merges. Later we will move to a full branchy workflow based on topic branches.

Topic Stage

We provide a "ITK Topic Stage" repository to which developers may publish arbitrary topic branches and request automatic merges.

The topic stage URLs are

• git://itk.org/stage/ITK.git (clone, fetch)
• http://itk.org/stage/ITK.git (clone, fetch, gitweb)
• git@itk.org:stage/ITK.git (push)

See our Topic Stage Workflow documentation for general instructions. (Currently ITK does not have a next branch. Just skip that part of the instructions and merge directly to master.) When accessing the ITK stage, one may optionally substitute "ssh git@itk.org stage ITK ..." for "ssh git@public.kitware.com stage <repo> ..." in the ssh command-line interface.

Stage Usage Summary
Initial Setup:	$ git remote add stage git://itk.org/stage/ITK.git $ git config remote.stage.pushurl git@itk.org:stage/ITK.git
Fetch Staged Topics:	$ git fetch stage --prune
Create Local Topic:	$ git checkout -b topic-name origin/master $ edit files $ git commit
Stage Current Topic:	$ git push stage HEAD
Print Staged Topics:	$ ssh git@itk.org stage ITK print
Merge Staged Topic:	$ ssh git@itk.org stage ITK merge topic-name

Note that the stage implementation is not ITK-specific and is used for other projects too. If the merge attempt conflicts it may print instructions for performing the merge manually. Ignore these instructions; you will not be able to push the merge commit directly. Instead, identify the commit that conflicts with yours, merge it into your topic locally, push the topic to the stage again, and then repeat the merge request.

Publishing

Pushing

Authorized developers may publish work directly to itk.org/ITK.git using Git's SSH protocol. To request access, fill out the Kitware Password form.

See the push instructions for details.

For ITK, configure the push URL:

git config remote.origin.pushurl git@itk.org:ITK.git

For ITKApps, configure the push URL:

git config remote.origin.pushurl git@itk.org:ITKApps.git

Update Hook

The itk.org repository has an update hook. When someone tries to push changes to the repository it checks the commits as documented here.

Testing

Dashboard

The dashboard branch contains a dashboard client helper script. Use these commands to track it:

$ mkdir -p ~/Dashboards/ITKScripts
$ cd ~/Dashboards/ITKScripts
$ git init
$ git remote add -t dashboard origin git://itk.org/ITK.git
$ git pull origin

The itk_common.cmake script contains setup instructions in its top comments. Update the dashboard branch to get the latest version of this script by simply running

$ git pull origin

Troubleshooting

Firewall Blocks Port 9418

Some institutions have firewalls that block Git's native protocol port 9418. Use the "url.<base>.insteadOf" configuration option to map git URLs to http:

$ git config --global url.http://itk.org/.insteadOf git://itk.org/

This tells Git to translate URLs under the hood by replacing prefixes. After running these commands once in your home directory then you can just use the "git://" mentioned elsewhere on this page and git will use the http protocol automagically.

Resources

Additional information about Git may be obtained at sites listed here.