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# Keeping debian/patches on a patch-queue branch

This part moved to gbp's [manual](https://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/git-buildpackage/manual-html/gbp.patches.html)

# Cloning a repository
If you use *gbp clone* instead of *git clone* to clone a remote repository it will automatically set up the *debian*, *upstream* and *pristine-tar* branches for you. The [manual][] explains the terminology.

# Keeping a repository up to date
After initially cloning with *gbp clone* you can run *gbp pull* to update your
*debian*, *upstream* and *pristine-tar* branches from the remote site. So the
complete workflow for simple team maintenance looks like this:

    # Initially clone the repo once
    gbp clone git://git.debian.org/pkg-libvirt/gtk-vnc.git
    cd gtk-vnc

Work on that clone, commit, release, push, etc. Now after a couple of days you
want to make more changes but don't know if another developer worked on it. So
you do:

    # Update to what others might have pushed
    gbp pull

This will update all necessary branches to what other developers might have
pushed in the meantime. If you're also using a patch-queue as described above
you can refresh that too in one step:

    # Update to what others might have pushed and rebuild patch-queue
    gbp pull --redo-pq

This will additionally drop your current patch-queue branch and recreate it from debian/patches.

# Preparing a Backport
I keep backports on a separate *bpo-<release>* branch like *bpo-lenny*:

    git checkout bpo-lenny
    git merge debian/<version-currently-in-testing>
    <resolve conflict in debian/changelog>
    <fix up stuff needed for backport>
    gbp buildpackage --git-pbuilder --git-dist=lenny -sa -v <last-backported-version> --git-debian-branch=bpo-lenny

In order to avoid the merge conflict in the changelog have a look at *dpkg-mergechangelogs(1)*. To create the necessary cowbuilder chroot for Lenny use:

    DIST=lenny git-pbuilder create


[git documentation]: http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html#cleaning-up-history
[manual]: http://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/git-buildpackage/manual-html/gbp.intro.html#GBP.REPOSITORY