GITPKG(1)

NAME
gitpkg - export a Debian source package from nominated git revisions

SYNOPSIS
gitpkg branch [origbranch]

DESCRIPTION
If gitpkg is run in a git(1) repo with a single 'branch' specified, then it will do a git-archive export of that branch to the DEB_DIR directory. If the package is Debian native it will simply create a source package from it. If the package has a Debian version, then an orig tarball will be expected to already exist for it. If an orig tarball does not already exist then what happens next depends on the value of the gitpkg.create-fake-orig configuration option (described below).

If gitpkg is invoked with two branches specified, then the first branch will be exported as the unpacked complete source, while the second branch will be exported for the orig.tar.gz. This allows all local changes to the source to be recorded in the resulting diff.gz if a pristine upstream branch exists in the repository. If an orig tarball already exists for the version at 'branch' then what happens next depends on the value of the gitpkg.force-overwrite-orig configuration option (described below).

The 'branch' should always have a debian/ dir and may be any tree-ish object that is accepted by git-archive(1). The 'origbranch', if supplied, should usually not have a debian/ dir.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
Almost all gitpkg configuration is handled using git-config(1) now. The following configuration options are supported:

gitpkg.deb-dir
    May be set to override the default destination directory for exported packages. Default is '../deb-packages'. Available to hook scripts as DEB_DIR. This may be overridden on the command line with the --deb-dir=path option.

gitpkg.build-rootcmd
    May be set to override the default command used to get root for package build operations. Default is 'fakeroot'. Available to hook scripts as BUILD_ROOTCMD.

gitpkg.prebuild-target
    May be set to a target or targets from debian/rules which will be called after the debian source tree is exported, but before the source package is built. Some packages may use this to generate autoconf files or the like, which should generally not be in the repo, but which should be in the distributed package. The target is invoked using the BUILD_ROOTCMD. A common use for this hook would be to call the package's 'clean' target. This hook is unset by default since gitpkg 0.18. Previous to that it defaulted to the clean target. Available to hook scripts as PREBUILD_TARGET.

gitpkg.export-submodules
    If a git repository contains submodules, then the submodule managed directories will not be automatically exported by git-archive(1), so if we want them in the exported source package then we need to jump through some extra hoops to export the source from each and every submodule too. Since this may not be the correct action for every "superproject" repository (especially since gitpkg has historically just ignored submodules prior to the 0.31 release) the option to export submodules must be explicitly enabled.

    If this option is set to 'true', then we will recursively export all submodules in the selected superproject revisions. If it is set to 'false', they will be treated as they were prior to gitpkg 0.31 and silently ignored. If this option is not set and there are submodules present in the revisions being exported, then the user will be prompted for the correct action to take.

    At present this is an all or nothing selection, there is no way to selectively exclude only certain submodules from export, but if anyone ever has a real repo where that is the desired action then it should not be a difficult feature to add. As with everything git though, the range of possible use cases makes it folly to prematurely 'support' straw man use cases, and we should wait to see what other problems real use cases actually need solved.

    Note that in a repo with submodules gitpkg must be run from a directory that is directly managed by the superproject, not one that belongs to a submodule. Any git commands run in directories that are managed by submodules will use the configuration for, and act on, only that submodule - and it is almost impossible to know or be sure which (of possibly many) containing superproject is the one the user really wanted to export. See the details of the gitpkg.allow-subproject-export option below for more on this.

    Available to hook scripts as EXPORT_SUBMODULES.

gitpkg.allow-subproject-export
    If gitpkg is invoked from a working directory that is managed by some submodule of a superproject then all git commands will operate on the submodule, not on its containing superproject - and it is almost impossible for us to know for sure whether the user has done this accidentally, intending to export the superproject, or deliberately, intending to export just the submodule package separately from the superproject it is a part of...

    So if we detect that gitpkg is invoked from a directory which is managed by a submodule then we need the user to tell us what they really wanted to do, and we can't rely on the treeish selected for export to be in any way persistently unique to just a single repo somewhere in the superproject tree.

    If this option is not set, the user will be prompted to confirm whether they really intended to export just the submodule, with the option to abort and instead run gitpkg from the desired superproject.

    If this option is set to 'true', then we will trust the user understands what they were doing, knows which subproject repo they invoked gitpkg in, and intends to export just that submodule (and possibly any other submodules that it in turn is a superproject for). And if they ever get that wrong, they get to keep all the pieces.

    If this option is set to 'false', then we will consider it to always be an error to try and directly export the submodule it is set for and immediately fail out. Note that it must be set in the submodule configuration, as the superproject configuration will not be read.

    In theory we could make this option indicate the root of the superproject that should be exported, but that just replaces an 'obvious' failure mode with a somewhat more insidious one that assumes an immutable relationship between them, with a silent awkward failure if that ever changes.

    If some subproject really can or should be exported as a package independently of the superproject it is a submodule of, then best practice is probably to be exporting it (and actively working on it) from its own independent working directory, with only selected versions checked out for read-only use as a submodule. Especially in the case of Debian packages, where managing them as a submodule of a superproject would mean that you have debian directories and control files nested in the superproject source.

    Available to hook scripts as ALLOW_SUBPROJECT_EXPORT. Though it's probably of little use to them, as it won't be set unless we are running in a submodule, and none of them will be run before the usual decision to abort execution.

gitpkg.orig-compressor
    May be set to override the default compression for an exported package.orig.tar. Default is 'gzip'. For format 3.0 packages, valid values also include xz and bzip2. Available to hook scripts as ORIG_COMPRESSOR.

gitpkg.orig-compress-level
    An optional compression level to use with gitpkg.orig-compressor. 1 is usually the fastest and 9 is usually the smallest, with the precise details of everything between being up to the chosen compressor. Default is unset (which will use whatever the compressor default is). Available to hook scripts as ORIG_COMPRESS_LEVEL.

gitpkg.orig-gz-opts
gitpkg.orig-xz-opts
gitpkg.orig-bz2-opts
    May be set to pass arbitrary options verbatim to gzip, xz or bzip2 when compressing the orig tarball. If not specified explicitly, gitpkg.orig-gz-opts will default to include the --no-name option so that no timestamp is included in the resulting file, making the output reproducible. No default options are used for the other compressors. To pass multiple options to a compressor you must set this option for it multiple times (ie. using git config --add for each option to use).

gitpkg.deb-compressor
    May be set to override the default compression used by dpkg-source(1) for exported packages. Default (if unset) is to use whatever dpkg-source wants to use. For format 3.0 packages, valid values also include xz and bzip2. Available to hook scripts as DEB_COMPRESSOR.

gitpkg.deb-compress-level
    An optional compression level to use with gitpkg.deb-compressor. 1 is usually the fastest and 9 is usually the smallest, with the precise details of everything between being up to the chosen compressor. Default is unset (which will use whatever the dpkg-source default is, currently '9'). Available to hook scripts as DEB_COMPRESS_LEVEL.

gitpkg.dpkg-source
    May be set to pass arbitrary options verbatim to dpkg-source(1) when building the source package. Use with caution and at your own risk. To pass multiple options to dpkg-source you must set this option multiple times (ie. using git config --add for each option) due to the otherwise amusing quoting requirements for options such as "--format=3.0 (native)". Default is empty. Available to hook scripts as the indexed array DPKG_SOURCE_OPTS. Do not use this to set the dpkg-source(1) -Z or -z options, they should instead be set using the deb-compressor and deb-compress-level options respectively. This may be overridden on the command line with the --dpkg-source=arg option, which likewise must be passed multiple times to set multiple options.

gitpkg.create-fake-orig
    Sometimes both upstream source and debian support really are intermingled into a single branch of the repo but you'd still like to make a 'non-native' package from it. gitpkg can fake an orig tarball from such a tree out of everything but the contents of the debian/ directory. Setting this option to 'true' makes that behaviour the default if a single treeish is passed to gitpkg and no corresponding orig tarball is found. Setting this option to 'false' will make gitpkg fail, reporting an error, if a single treeish is passed and no orig tarball with the correct version already exists for it (and none was retrieved by a hook script prior to it being needed). If this option is unset then the user will be prompted for the correct thing to do if this situation arises. Default is unset. Available to hook scripts as CREATE_FAKE_ORIG.

gitpkg.force-overwrite-orig
    This option controls the behaviour of gitpkg if an 'origbranch' treeish is specified and the corresponding orig.tar for the 'branch' already exists. If this is set to 'true', then the orig.tar will be overwritten with the repo source (to reuse an existing orig.tar simply call gitpkg with only the single debian 'branch' treeish you wish to export). If this is set to 'false', then it is a hard error to attempt to export the upstream source again when the orig.tar already exists, and gitpkg will terminate and scold you if you try. If unset you will be prompted about whether to overwrite it or not, and the build will continue using whichever of the two you selected. Default is unset. Available to hook scripts as FORCE_OVERWRITE_ORIG.

gitpkg.keep-unpacked-source
    This option controls whether or not the unpacked source directory is kept after the package export and exit hook have successfully completed. If this is set to 'true', the unpacked source will be retained. If set to 'false' or unset then that directory will be removed as the final operation before gitpkg exits if all prior operations completed successfully. Default is unset. Available to hook scripts as KEEP_UNPACKED_SOURCE. This may be overridden on the command line with the --keep-unpacked-source=bool option (where 'no' or 'false' will not keep it, and any other value, including nothing, will).

SCRIPT HOOKS
User defined scripts can be invoked from a number of points during the package build process. They are sourced into gitpkg as bash shell snippets, in most cases in a subshell, so they can read state variables and perform external actions, but cannot alter the running configuration once a build is in progress. If a hook returns with a non-zero status, then gitpkg will be terminated. (Hooks that do terminate gitpkg should take some care not to leave too much of a mess, but also should leave enough clues intact for the user to diagnose and fix whatever the problem was. Useful and informative error messages should be barked to stderr before exiting in this way.)

Hook scripts may be installed on the host system outside of the repo tree, or sourced from version controlled files in the repo itself. Both methods have advantages and risks for different use cases. Hook scripts are activated by the local admin, by setting each relevant git-config(1) option with the path to the script to be executed. Paths may be absolute or relative to the directory which that hook is called from. If a hook is set, the script must exist when it is called. Care should be taken to only enable them for use by trusted source trees when hooking into files in the repo itself. Usually you should enable them on a per-repo basis with git-config(1) rather than at a --global or --system level.

  A brief admonition against getting hooked:
You should avoid complicated in-package hook arrangements becoming essential for exporting your package source. If you need them to create a particular package correctly, and need strict version binding with the source being released, and they aren't useful to any other package at all ... then you're quite probably doing something, or several things, quite wrong. Else you're in such deep shit working around some broken build system that you don't need me to tell you about it. Either way, local admin has to enable your hooks before they can run, so if you want to be friendly to others (and yourself), then keep the 'normal' packaging work strictly inside the usual package building tools, and leave the gitpkg hooks free for other local admins to wrap whatever automation it is they need around things. If a particular version of the package source needs some particular actions performed on it prior to the first source package build, then the PREBUILD_TARGET option from above is most probably what you want rather than one of these hooks. Other people can use that again later without needing to have gitpkg around. The aim is for this to Help You. For some values of All Of You. So do be careful to avoid letting it screw other people over if the hook isn't called, and/or let them know what they need to do instead if it isn't. Ok then, there's the barb to watch out for, so back to the point again:

  Hook points
The available hook points are listed below in roughly the order that they would usually be invoked:

gitpkg.package-config-hook
    This hook runs in the top level directory of the repo gitpkg was invoked in, prior to any operations taking place, with all git-config(1) sourced options available to it. No detailed information about the package itself is available in the hook environment yet, not even its name or version, only the tree-ish(es) that gitpkg was passed by the user, but the hook may run its own self-checks based on the current (possibly 'dirty') contents of the working tree that gitpkg was invoked in.

    This hook is able to modify the gitpkg configuration variables for subsequent operations. It can perform operations on the repo if needed, but since it needs to be committed to the repo before it will ever be called, that may not be so useful here in practice. Basically, it can do anything it pleases, it's just a shell script, nothing else has really begun yet, and it has been sourced into the topmost shell level of gitpkg.

    Its operation is different from the admin-config-hook in only one respect, the path to this hook must be relative to the TLD of the repo, and the revision of the file that will be sourced is checked out from the 'branch' tree-ish that gitpkg was requested to export. The file must exist in that version at the path given.

    Available to hook scripts as PACKAGE_CONFIG_HOOK.

gitpkg.admin-config-hook
    This hook is run after the package-config-hook returns, and differs from it in operation only by reading a static file from the current filesystem rather than extracting a version controlled one from the repo being exported.

    This can be used by the local admin to override any package specific options, that may have been set by the package-config-hook, with site specific configuration. This is a policy control, not a security one. Security was all over when you let the package-config-hook run, this just lets you override it without having to fake up a new commit changing the package hook.

    This is the last hook to run that is able to modify the gitpkg configuration and set environment options that will be visible to later hooks. Available to hook scripts as ADMIN_CONFIG_HOOK. This may be overridden on the command line with the --admin-config-hook=path option.

gitpkg.pre-export-hook
    This hook runs in the top level directory of the repo, after the package name and version have been determined, and with the final package configuration including any tweaking by the previous hooks. It cannot alter any configuration options, only act upon them or terminate gitpkg.

    This can be used to do things like invoke pristine-tar or prefetch an existing orig tarball from some foreign source. It may perform operations on the repo if any such are desired, or any other last minute check that needs to be done before we actually get about the task of exporting the source we want packaged.

    Available to hook scripts as PRE_EXPORT_HOOK.

gitpkg.deb-export-hook
    This hook runs in the top level directory of the exported debian source, immediately after the source has been exported from the requested tree-ish, and immediately prior to the PREBUILD_TARGET being invoked (if provided). It cannot alter any configuration options, only act upon them or terminate gitpkg. If this hook terminates gitpkg, the exported source directory will be left on the system for the user to inspect. Subsequent invocations of gitpkg for the same release version will overwrite it though. Available to hook scripts as DEB_EXPORT_HOOK.

gitpkg.orig-export-hook
    This hook runs in the top level directory of the exported 'upstream' source, immediately after the source has been exported from the provided tree-ish, and prior to it being compressed into a tarball. It cannot alter any configuration options, only act upon them or terminate gitpkg. If this hook terminates gitpkg, the exported source directory will be left on the system for the user to inspect. Subsequent invocations of gitpkg for the same release version will overwrite it though.

    This hook is only invoked if the upstream 'origbranch' actually is exported from the repository. If an existing orig.tar is found or has been created by some earlier hook (and it is not being overwritten, see force-overwrite-orig above), then the operations this hook would perform are presumed to have already happened for this tarball and it is skipped.

    It is not safe to assume that this hook will be executed before or after deb-export-hook, and it may in fact be run in parallel with it at some point in the future. They both will be entered after pre-export-hook returns, and exit-hook will not begin until (at least) after both have returned. What else happens in the middle of all that we make no firm promises about at this stage.

    Available to hook scripts as ORIG_EXPORT_HOOK.

gitpkg.exit-hook
    This hook runs in the directory where the package .dsc was deposited by dpkg-source(1), after all internal gitpkg operations have successfully completed. It's too late to alter any configuration options, or even to terminate gitpkg really. You can pretty much do what you like from this one, anything that goes wrong from here on is your own doing. Available to hook scripts as EXIT_HOOK. This may be overridden on the command line with the --exit-hook=path option.

  Hook Environment
The following variables are made available for hook scripts, in addition to those already listed as shadowing a git-config option from above. Not all of them are valid/useful at all hook points, see the hook documentation above for the exceptions applying to specific hooks.

GITPKG_HOOK_API
    Permits hook scripts to query what interfaces are available to them. Has only two numeric components separated by a '.' of which the number to the right of point will get incremented every time we add some new variable a hook might access, or add some new knob it might tweak where existing interfaces have not have changed. If we do screw up and need to change some current interface, the number to the left will get bumped. The current API version is 0.3

  Available in API version 0.1
These variables have been available to hooks since gitpkg version 0.13

GITPKG_TREEISH
    The user-passed debian 'branch' tree-ish that gitpkg was invoked to export.

GITPKG_ORIG_TREEISH
    The 'origbranch' tree-ish that gitpkg was invoked with. This will be empty if only a single 'branch' tree-ish was specified.

DEB_SOURCE
    The name of the source package to create, without any versioning. As seen in the Source: field of dpkg-parsechangelog(1).

DEB_VERSION
    The version of the source package to create, without any epoch. As seen in the name of the .diff.gz and .dsc files.

UPSTREAM_VERSION
    The version of the source package to create, without any debian version. As seen in the name of the orig tarball. For native packages this will be the same as DEB_VERSION.

DEB_ORIG
    The full versioned filename of the orig tarball to use or create. This variable is empty for native packages without a Debian version part.

DEB_DSC
    The full filename of the package .dsc that will be or has been created.

DEB_PACKAGE
    The directory name of the debianised source tree to pass to dpkg-source(1).

REPO_DIR
    An absolute path to the top level directory of the git repo we are exporting from. Usually, if you need to look out of the tree that you were dropped in, you're probably doing something (at the) wrong (time), but there are exceptions, and being able to query git-config options is one of them. That's mostly what this one is for right now. See the repo-config-helper documented below. Be careful if you do use it for much else.

  Available in API version 0.2
These variables have been available to hooks since gitpkg version 0.24

GITPKG_AOPTS
    An associative array containing the command line options not parsed by gitpkg itself which can be used to override the behaviour of a hook. The array is keyed on the names of the options with the '--' removed. If an option was passed multiple times, only the last value passed will be stored in this array. For example:

     $ gitpkg --my-option=foo --option2 --opt=oops --opt='bar baz'

    Will give:

     ${GITPKG_AOPTS[my-option]} = 'foo'
     ${GITPKG_AOPTS[option2]}   = ''
     ${GITPKG_AOPTS[opt]}       = 'bar baz'

GITPKG_IOPTS
    An indexed array containing the command line options not parsed by gitpkg itself which can be used to override the behaviour of a hook. The array contains the literal option strings passed and so can be used to access options which are intended to be passed multiple times. For example:

     $ gitpkg --my-option=foo --option2 --opt=oops --opt='bar baz'

    Will give:

     ${GITPKG_IOPTS[0]} = '--my-option=foo'
     ${GITPKG_IOPTS[1]} = '--option2'
     ${GITPKG_IOPTS[2]} = '--opt=oops'
     ${GITPKG_IOPTS[3]} = '--opt=bar baz'

    There are convenience functions in repo-config-helper (see below for details) which can be used to inspect this array and obtain all the value(s) for a specific option.

  Available in API version 0.3
A range of new support functions were added to repo-config-helper in gitpkg version 0.30

    - require_bash_version()
    - trim_array()

    - have_commandline_option()
    - have_any_of_these_commandline_options()

    - extract_values_for()
    - extract_value_for()
    - extract_bool_for()

    - get_option_values()
    - get_option_value()
    - get_bool_value()

These are described in more detail in the Hook Library Helpers section below.

  Hook Library
There are some canned hook scripts for various tasks available in /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks which currently include:

cowpoke-exit-hook
    A simple exit hook which sends the exported package off for building using cowpoke(1). To enable it:

     $ git config gitpkg.exit-hook /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks/cowpoke-exit-hook

    Additional git-config(1) configuration options:

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.ask-first
        If 'true' and no cowpoke-specific command line option was passed, then prompt for confirmation before calling cowpoke. Use of a cowpoke option on the command-line is an implicit acknowledgement that the caller knows and intends that the exported source package will be sent to cowpoke to be built, and so will skip this confirmation nagging.

        Default is to just go ahead and do it if this hook is set.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.options
        May include any other options that you wish to pass verbatim to cowpoke(1). To pass multiple options, set this multiple times, once for each option. This may be overridden on the command line with the --cowpoke=arg option, which likewise must be passed multiple times to set multiple options.

        You can use --cowpoke= (or equivalently, either --cowpoke or --no-cowpoke) to override and clear all configured .options without needing to pass some arbitrary new one. This will not override any other --cowpoke=arg options which are passed on the command line. As a multi-valued option, all empty values which are passed for it will simply be ignored aside from causing the configuration file defaults to be ignored.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.arch
        The default Debian architecture(s) to build for. Setting this option to <arch> is equivalent to using --arch=<arch> in .options above, except using --arch on the command line will only override any architectures set with this option, and --cowpoke=--arch=<arch> will not override architectures set with this option. To build for multiple architectures set this (or use --arch on the command line) multiple times, once for each <arch>.

        If no arch is set or passed on the command line it will default to whatever is configured in cowpoke.conf, which in turn will default to what dpkg-architecture(1) returns for DEB_BUILD_ARCH on the machine that is running gitpkg.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.dist
        The default Debian distribution(s) to build for. Setting this option to <dist> is equivalent to using --dist=<dist> in .options above, except using --dist on the command line will only override any distributions set with this option, and --cowpoke=--dist=<dist> will not override distributions set with this option. To build for multiple distributions set this (or use --dist on the command line) multiple times, once for each <dist>.

        If no dist is set or passed on the command line it will default to whatever is configured in cowpoke.conf, and if not set there it will default to whatever cowbuilder is locally configured for on the remote machine.

        The <dist> name used here may also be a locally defined identifier for any specially configured cowpoke chroot that is available, such as those set up for building backports or using extra packages only available from a local repository. See the cowpoke(1) description of its --dist option for details of that.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.dpkg-bp
        Additional options for use by dpkg-buildpackage(1). Setting this option is equivalent to using --dpkg-bp=option in .options above, except using --dpkg-bp on the command line will only override the configuration that was set with this option, and --cowpoke=--dpkg-bp=option will not override the configuration that is set with this option. To pass multiple options to dpkg-buildpackage set this (or use --dpkg-bp on the command line) multiple times, once for each option.

        These options will be appended to any that are specified in DEBBUILDOPTS in the build host's pbuilderrc. To clear any already preset options, first pass it with an empty argument (i.e. --dpkg-bp= --dpkg-bp=option ...).

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.source-changes
        If set to 'true', 'yes', 'signed', or set without a value (or to an empty string), then it is equivalent to adding the cowpoke(1) option --sign-source-changes to .options above, except it is independent of the options that would be overridden by --cowpoke on the command line. The value signed has no additional special effect for this hook, it is supported for equivalence with the values accepted for .source-changes in the dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.

        If set to 'false' or 'no', it is the equivalent of adding the cowpoke(1) option --no-sign-source-changes.

        The default if this option is not set at all is defer to SIGN_SOURCE_CHANGES in the cowpoke.conf, or if it is not set to the pbuilder(8) configuration SOURCE_ONLY_CHANGES setting.

        All other values passed with this option are an error.

        This setting may be overridden on the command line with --sign-source-changes[=arg] where legal values for arg and their actions are the same as described above. Using --no-sign-source-changes has the equivalent effect to using --sign-source-changes=no.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.sign-key
        May be set to the fingerprint of the key to sign packages with. This will override the SIGN_KEYID specified for a chroot in the cowpoke configuration files. If you use different keys to sign packages built in different chroots, then you should probably configure the signing key ID in cowpoke.conf instead, but for individual builds you can override it on the command line with the --sign=keyid option.

        The --no-sign option will cancel the use of any keyid that was set with .sign-key in the git config, or by a previous command-line option, but this just means gitpkg will not pass a keyid to cowpoke, it does not override cowpoke's own configuration which may still specify a default key to use for the given arch/dist. To also override any SIGN_KEYID that is set in cowpoke.conf you can instead use --sign= (with an empty argument), which will be passed through to cowpoke and clear the signing keyid, preventing cowpoke from offering the option of signing the packages after they are built.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.upload-to
        The dput(1) HOSTNAME to upload packages to. This will override the UPLOAD_QUEUE specified for a chroot in the cowpoke configuration files. If you use different upload queues for packages built in different chroots, then you should configure this in cowpoke.conf instead, but for individual builds you can override the upload queue on the command line with the --upload=queue option.

        The --no-upload option will cancel the use of any upload queue that was set with .upload-to in the git config, or by a previous command-line option, but this just means gitpkg will not pass an upload queue to cowpoke, it does not override cowpoke's own configuration which may still specify a default queue to use for the given arch/dist. To also override any UPLOAD_QUEUE that is set in cowpoke.conf you can instead use --upload= (with an empty argument), which will be passed through to cowpoke and clear the upload queue, preventing cowpoke from offering the option of uploading the packages after they are signed.

    gitpkg-cowpoke-exit-hook.return-dir
        This may be set to a filesystem path on the local host (absolute or relative to the directory which gitpkg(1) was invoked from) where the packages built by cowpoke will be copied to once the build is completed. It may be specified on (or overridden by) the command line with the --return[=path] option. If no path is specified, the (cowpoke) default is the current directory.

        The --no-return option will cancel a .return-dir set in the git config, or by a previous command-line option, but this just means gitpkg will not pass a return dir to cowpoke, it does not override cowpoke's own configuration which may still specify a RETURN_DIR. Because cowpoke recognises --return (with no value assignment) as a discrete option, to override and clear RETURN_DIR that is set in cowpoke.conf from here you must pass the empty assignment verbatim in the .options configuration, or on the command line with --cowpoke=--return= which will bypass the normal gitpkg handling of the --return option.

dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook
    A simple exit hook to build binary packages locally with dpkg-buildpackage(1). To enable it:

     $ git config gitpkg.exit-hook /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks/dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook

    Additional git-config(1) configuration options:

    gitpkg-dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.ask-first
        If 'true' and no dpkg-buildpackage-specific command line option was passed, then prompt for confirmation before calling dpkg-buildpackage. Use of a dpkg-buildpackage option on the command-line is an implicit acknowledgement that the caller knows and intends that the exported source package will be built with dpkg-buildpackage(1) and so will skip this confirmation nagging.

        Default is to just do it if this hook is set.

    gitpkg-dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.options
        May include any other options that you wish to pass verbatim to dpkg-buildpackage. To pass multiple options, set this multiple times, once for each option. This may be overridden on the command line with the --dpkg-bp=arg option, which likewise must be passed multiple times to set multiple options.

        You can use --dpkg-bp= (or equivalently, either --dpkg-bp or --no-dpkg-bp) to override and clear all configured .options without needing to pass some arbitrary new one. This will not override any other --dpkg-bp=arg options which are passed on the command line. As a multi-valued option, all empty values which are passed for it will simply be ignored aside from causing the configuration file defaults to be ignored.

    gitpkg-dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.source-changes
        If 'true' or 'yes' then a <package>_source.changes file, suitable for a "source only" upload, will be generated (independently of any changes file that dpkg-buildpackage creates according to the options passed to it). If the -uc or --unsigned-changes option was passed to dpkg-buildpackage then this changes file will not be signed either.

        If set to the special value 'signed' then the <package>_source.changes file, and any .dsc or .buildinfo files referenced by it, will be signed regardless of any -uc, -us, -ui options being used to suppress signing of the files created by dpkg-buildpackage. This makes it possible to do a full binary build, creating source and .deb files for inspection and testing, but then sign only the files needed to do a source only upload to another build farm.

        If set without a value (or to an empty string), then the behaviour is the same as if it was set to 'signed' and --dpkg-bp=-uc --dpkg-bp=-us were passed. i.e. Only the <package>_source.changes file (and the files referenced by it) will be signed, not the binary files created by the build. This is probably what most people want when exporting a package with the intent of doing a "source only" upload.

        The default if unset is the same as setting this option to 'false' or 'no', no <package>_source.changes file will be created by this hook and the behaviour is simply what would be expected from dpkg-buildpackage(1) with any otherwise configured options passed to it.

        All other values passed with this option are an error.

        This setting may be overridden on the command line with --sign-source-changes[=arg] where legal values for arg and their actions are the same as described above. Using --no-sign-source-changes has the equivalent effect to using --sign-source-changes=no.

    gitpkg-dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.sign-key
        May be set to the fingerprint of the key to use for signing exported and built package files. If not set then the signing key derived by (or set in other configuration for) dpkg-buildpackage(1) will be used when signing binary changes files, with the defaults for debsign(1) being used in the case where a "source only upload" changes is being signed.

        Since those two tools don't use the same configuration, that may not be the same key for all users on all machines, but we do respect and use DEB_SIGN_KEYID from the environment (if it is set with no other overriding configuration), when calling debsign, as it would otherwise ignore that configuration option from dpkg-buildpackage. The usual debsign default is instead DEBSIGN_KEYID and set in the devscripts.conf file.

        You can override the signing key on the command line with the --sign=keyid option. The --no-sign option will cancel the use of any keyid that was set with .sign-key in the git config, or by a previous command-line option, but this just means gitpkg will not pass a keyid to dpkg-buildpackage(1) and it will revert to its own determination of what key should be used for signing. To actually not sign a package you'll want to use something like --dpkg-bp=-uc --dpkg-bp=-us to explicitly disable signing.

    gitpkg-dpkg-buildpackage-exit-hook.build-log
        If set 'false' don't save a log of the build process, the default is to record one. This may be overridden on the command line with the --build-log[=bool-value] or --no-build-log option.

pristine-tar-pre-export-hook
    A hook to extract an orig tarball using pristine-tar. Which orig to extract is determined by the package version of the 'branch' tree-ish. To enable it:

     $ git config gitpkg.pre-export-hook /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks/pristine-tar-pre-export-hook

    If a pristine-tar branch is not found in the repo, then gitpkg will be terminated.

quilt-patches-deb-export-hook
    This hook reads a list of revision ranges suitable for git-format-patch(1) from the file debian/source/git-patches, one per line, and exports them to the debian/patches directory in a form suitable for (format 3.0) quilt packages. It is not required for creating such packages, but permits you to separate out individual patches however you please from the default single patch that is otherwise created by dpkg-source.

    To enable it:

     $ git config gitpkg.deb-export-hook /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks/quilt-patches-deb-export-hook

    The contents of debian/source/git-patches may include comments (on any line beginning with a #), empty lines, and expressions of a range of commits. The revision ranges may include $DEB_VERSION, $UPSTREAM_VERSION, $DEB_REF or $UPSTREAM_REF. The first pair will be substituted with the version of the package being exported, the second pair with those version strings after mangling by sanitise_git_ref to remap them to a legal git refname. Using the sanitised versions is to be preferred in most cases. For example:

     # Export all commits between these two treeishes,
     # based on the version of the package being exported.

     upstream/$UPSTREAM_REF..patches/$DEB_REF

debcherry-deb-export-hook
    This hook invokes git-debcherry(1) to find and export patches to the upstream source in a form suitable for use with (format 3.0) quilt packages. It allows for a more natural (and automatic) workflow than the quilt-patches hook above by searching for patches made to the packaging branch that have not yet been applied upstream.

    To enable it:

     $ git config gitpkg.deb-export-hook /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks/debcherry-deb-export-hook

    In order to use this hook, a ${DEB_ORIG}.commit file must be created which contains the treeish of the exported upstream source in the repository. This will be created automatically (if this hook is enabled) when you export an upstream tarball by passing both branch and origbranch to gitpkg, or if you use the pristine-tar-pre-export-hook, which determines an appropriate commit corresponding to the tarball. If your upstream tarball is created using some other mechanism you will need to ensure that file is created yourself.

    If using this hook, you may wish to document that in your repository with something similar to the text in /usr/share/doc/gitpkg/examples/README.debcherry-export as a convenience to other users. Your package will still be exportable without this hook enabled, it just won't have the upstream patches individually separated out into a quilt series.

  Hook Library Helpers
These are additional shell code snippet files which are also found in /usr/share/gitpkg/hooks, for operations which may usefully be shared by several hook scripts. Usually these would be sourced by other scripts rather than being hooked to directly.

repo-config-helper
    This file provides functions for querying configuration options which may be set in the project git-config, or overridden by command line arguments.

    repo_config()
        Provides a simple wrapper around `git config`, which ensures it is called from the repo tree where any repo-specific config options may be stored. Useful to scripts which aren't called from inside the repo tree, but which do have git-config(1) options of their own to query.

    sanitise_git_ref()
        Remaps character strings that are illegal to use in a git refname.

    require_bash_version()
        Allows a hook script to assert a minimum bash version needed to provide all the functionality its implementation requires.

    trim_array()
        Removes all empty elements from an array. This can be useful for, among other things, filtering option values where an empty value should not propagate as an argument word.

    have_commandline_option()
        A Simple true or false test of whether some --option or its counterpart --no-option were passed on the command line, which evaluates to false if neither of them were.

    have_any_of_these_commandline_options()
        Convenience function to call have_commandline_option for multiple options, returning true if any of them were passed, or false if none of them were.

    extract_values_for()
        This is a refinement of the older (and now deprecated) extract_values_for_option() function which is much cleaner to use, but depends on functionality that was introduced in bash version 4.3 (which has been available since Jessie, so it shouldn't practically limit backports of this gitpkg release).

        It is designed to query multi-valued command line options, filling an array with all of the values passed to gitpkg for some option which were recorded in GITPKG_IOPTS (or any similar array).

    extract_value_for()
        More suited for single-valued options, this sets a variable to the value of the final overriding instance of a command line option.

    extract_bool_for()
        Like extract_value_for(), but intended for options where all values are expected to be either true or false.

    get_option_values()
        Fill a multi-valued array with optional hard-coded default values, overriding those defaults with a (multi-valued) configuration option from git-config, and overriding both of those if any values were passed for it on the command line.

    get_option_value()
        Assign a single-valued variable with an optional hard-coded default value, overriding that default with a configuration option from git-config, and overriding both of those if a value was passed on the command line.

    get_bool_value()
        Like get_option_value() except all values set are either true or false.

    See the content of that file itself for more detailed documentation on these functions, their operation, and calling conventions.

INTERACTIVIY
If you intend to call gitpkg from your own scripts, then you should note that there are two situations when it may prompt interactively by default. There is no One True Sane Default for these cases, so it's better to just ask the user and continue than to make them start the whole process again in the likely case where they have called gitpkg directly. For details, see the gitpkg.force-overwrite-orig and gitpkg.create-fake-orig config options above. You should set both explicitly to the behaviour that you desire from them if gitpkg should never become interactive.

WORKFLOW
Though gitpkg explicitly does not try to force any particular workflow procedure upon you in order to make full use of it, it probably is worth making quick mention of at least one simple way to manage Debian packages in git.

One common repo structure is to keep pristine upstream source on one branch, which is updated either directly from an upstream repo or by importing tar archives to it periodically, with the Debian patched source on another branch. In this situation the task of preparing a new upstream release from a tarball might look a bit like this:

   Check out the upstream branch
 $ cd myrepo
 $ git checkout upstream

   Remove all old upstream files from the repo
 $ rm -rf $(all_files_except .git)

   Unpack the new tarball in their place
 $ tar zxf $new_upstream.tar.gz

   Let git figure out what is renamed/new/gone by itself.
   Make sure you don't have things like vim .swp files lurking
   in the tree still at this point.
 $ git add .
 $ git commit -a
 $ git tag v$upstream_version

   Prepare the Debian branch
 $ git checkout debian
 $ git merge upstream
 $ $(update changelog and other debian patches etc.)
 $ git commit -a
 $ git tag v${upstream_version}-$debian_version

   Make a release
 $ gitpkg v${upstream_version}-$debian_version v$upstream_version
 $ cd ../deb-packages/mypackage && dpkg-buildpackage ...

SEE ALSO
git-debimport(1), git-debcherry(1), git(1), git-archive(1), git-config(1), git-format-patch(1), gitattributes(5), dpkg-source(1), cowpoke(1).

AUTHOR
gitpkg was written by Ron <ron@debian.org>.