gimic

Mimic Git with added functionality

Nested repo code updates

repo 1 <Main_repo>
|
|- /some/cool/file/from/repo2

Easily manage specific files/directories from other repos "remotely".

Installation:

Make sure you have git installed, and your working in a git repo

---

1. Build from source

   i. After downloading the source code, run cargo build --release

   ii. [Optional] Add file location of the release to system PATH

How it works:

Gimic was designed to miMIC GIt, where although submodules and subtree are great options for including another repo into your project, you may want a little bit more granular control of what file(s) are actually pulled in and are sitting in your local directory/workspace. Using gimic only affects your repo where the file will appear untracked (as any new file would) so it may be a good idea to update your .gitignore file or .git/exclude

Configuration:

Create a gloc.yaml file in the root of your poject

• Checkout the example configuration file to get an idea

repo 1
|
|-gloc.yaml

If you applied installation step 2.ii, this can be run anywhere within a nested .git directory, otherwise the target build directory will need to exist within the desired "root" repo.

Usage:

$ gimic checkout

• This is is just a wrapper around git pull and cp <source> <to>. Specifying just the action only , ie. checkout, and no other args means that a yaml file configuration exists somehwere in the execution path (ie. the place where you've called gimic) and that when the alternate_repo is pulled down, the files will be copied from the alternate_source to the alternate_target. Note that at least one of the locations needs to exists, and if only one of either option does exists, this will be the default for the other option. Meaning (super simple psudo-ish code Rust) !alternate_source { alternate_target = alternate_source } (and vice versa). NOTE: This is currently not enforced, but will be in later versions.

• File copying resembles, like Linux, where target "type" is based off of "source" type. Meaning if "source" ie (alternate_source) is a file, "target" will be a file (regardless if it contains a designated extension). But if "source" is a directory, then target will be a direct( even IF it has a file designation). Another thing to note is that recursive file creation is standard with the checkout command. Similar to mkdir -R in Linux

• When gimic's checkout process completes. The temporary repo( aka. alternate_repo) is removed, unless otherwise specified within gloc.yaml configuration

$ gimic --[no-]skip-worktree target_dir

• Because git update-index --skip-worktree <some_file> does not handle directories, rather than needing to create some wicked one line code snippet, you can turn on/off the git's tracking (temporarily like original command)

Potential Changes

1. Allow existence gloc.yaml file to be optional
2. Allow downloadable prebuilt binaries for popular systems
3. Proivde option to merge/rebase current file/files
4. Allow multiple targets
5. Incorporate commit and pushes
   • commits would require directory perisistence..
6. allow skip worktree to specifcy alternate location

Contributions

Feel free to commment in the repo and let me know if you have any other suggestions or want to contribute!