Git-Sync (Bash)

This is a pretty crude tool that reads all **/.gitsync files in a git repository to forcefully update files from other git repositories.

The intended use is in situations when you want to fork a repo, stay up-to-date with most of the upstream but still have control over meaningful changes.

For example, building a bundle of templates as a single repo from actively developed/best-practise repos, or to build a monorepo to improve CI.

.gitsync files

This tool provides a mechanism (.gitsync files) to describe what changes and what doesn't when you want to sync. Then it'll forcefully do that; no conflicts ever.

These files can be nested anywhere in the project, and multiple .gitsync files can be used.

NOTE: a .gitsync file in a parent directory relative to another .gitsync file will automatically exclude (see .rsync-filter files) that child directory from its sync

E.g. In a project with 2 .gitsync files A/.gitsync and A/B/C/.gitsync, the directory A/B/C will be excluded when doing the sync for directory A

The .gitsync file:

# REQUIRED
REMOTE="" # The git remote url to be used (git remote add ...)
BRANCH="" # The branch to fetch for changes (git fetch ...)

# OPTIONAL
REMOTE_PATH="" # A relative path from the root in the remote repository that will be used as the root path. Default: entire repo
POST_SYNC_SCRIPT="" # A bash-command to run after completing the sync

.rsync-filter files

See the full man page for more details

This uses rsync to do the updates, because it's a very robust tool, which means .rsync-filter files can be used to control what is synced and not synced.

These files can be placed at anywhere in the project and will be discovered

E.g. Exclude a file/directory from the upstream from copying to this repo

exclude gradle.bat
exclude .circleci/

E.g. Protect a local file/directory that does not exist in the upstream from being removed/modified

protect configurations/
protect README.md