Backups

The flexibility of the patch queue also makes it easier to mess things up.

In order to have some kind of safety and to be able to restore an older working state of the patch queue, git-gq uses a git repository for backups.

Implementation

If git gq backup is called for the first time, it creates a git repository inside the patch queue directory.

Note

All patch queues are managed with a single git repository.

The backup command creates a directory ‘applied’ inside the current queue directory which has a copy of all patches applied at the time.

It then runs git commit for the patch queue repository.

You can enter arbitrary git commands on the patch queue repository with:

git gq qrepo COMMAND -- OPTIONS

The command:

git gq restore REVISION

checks out the given revision in the queue repository.

Note

The command fails if there are any uncommitted changes or unknown files in the queue repository. This ensures that you don’t accidently loose data with git gq restore.

Note

Your project git repository is never changed by the commands git gq backup and git gq restore.

The command:

git gq revert

changes the git repository to the state it had when the last backup was made. At the parent revision a new branch is created where all the patches from directory ‘applied’ are added as regular commits.

The new branch gets the name of your current branch with a number appended, e.g. ‘master’ becomes ‘master-1’.With option --move-branchname, the new branch gets your current branch name and the old branch gets the new name.

How to create a backup

Simply enter:

git gq backup

How to restore a backup

Look what backups are present, e.g. with:

git gq qrepo log

Select a revision and restore it with:

git gq restore REVISION

Your main git repository is still not changed at this stage.

If you want to reset your main repository to the state of the backup, enter:

git gq revert