Provide an easy way to create an OBS branched project for a git-based package

[tiwai]

Since the introduction of the new git workflow, basically the handling of the source and building the package became separated. Although osc fork is a way to achieve a la previous osc branch for git, it'd be also handy if we have a simple way to create a new OBS project tied with the existing (possibly already forked) git repo.

Suppose you have a package foo in OBS devel project abc:bar, corresponding gitea repo is abc-bar/foo.
And now you forked the git repo to user/foo, and modified something. Now you want to test builds -- that is, create a new OBS project home:user:branches:abc:bar that refers to abc:bar, and put the package foo from the gitea repo user/foo with scmsync meta.

Or, use an OBS project name corresponding to gitea owner/repo name, such as home:user:git:user-foo, referring to the devel proj abc:bar. And the package will be home:user:git:user-foo/foo .

Maybe there can be better ways, but hopefully you get an idea.
I'd just like to avoid cumbersome copy&paste of obs meta at each time.

[andrii-suse]

I've looked into what can be done and wonder if adding logic for handling --scmsync parameter to osc mkpac will cover at least some scenarios? E.g.

cd ~/oscroot/home:user:git:user-foo
mkpac --scmsync https://src.opensuse.org/user-foo/foo.git foo

Do you think it will be useful or do you have better ideas how the commands could look like?

[tiwai]

Yes, the option to osc mkpac is a nice idea and a straightforward implementation.

For making the situation clearer: currently, osc fork does three things:

1. Fork the Gitea repo
2. Branch the OBS project
3. Create a new package on the branched OBS project with scmsync to the forked Gitea repo

Any my proposal was to provide command(s) for 2 and 3 while the user already has a Gitea repo (e.g. newly created or already forked on Gitea UI).

The osc mkpac option would implement 3.
Or, maybe an alternative would be a way to create a package on the given OBS project with the scmsync setup (a la automatism of osc meta pkg)?

What about 2? Do we have an osc command just to branch a project without a package?

[andrii-suse]

Yeah 2. is the trickiest part (because we want the command to work with single parameter - gitea url, is my understanding correct?), I was hoping to at least quickly solve 3. But apparently mkpac is probably wrong direction, because it needs commit for osc meta to work (and adding autocommit is also weird here). I will try to find better idea

[andrii-suse]

So I've tried git fork osc fork when the git repository already exists and it just proceeds to 2. and 3. from the list.
Do you think using existing git fork osc fork functionality will do the job? (considering that it skips gitea step if the gitea repo already exists). Or is anything missing?

[tiwai]

What about creating a new package from the scratch?

[andrii-suse]

What about creating a new package from the scratch?

I don't know if automation is needed here. I believe it is more intuitive to just use set of commands once in a while, than remember another abstraction (e.g. I use the same set of simple commands git commands over and over and don't really feel that I need a wrapper for them).

If I am not mistaken, the whole sequence should be like:

obs-git-init MyPackage
cd MyPackage
git add ...
git commit ...
git push ...
cd ~/oscroot:myuser:myproject
osc mkpac MyPackage
osc add MyPackage
osc commit
cd MyPackage
osc meta ...

Or do you e.g. prefer new rmkpac command, instead of the last steps, like:

osc rmkpac --scmsync https://src.opensuse.org/myuser/MyPackage MyPackage

(rmkpac will just commit the new package and edit meta if scmsync is provided)

[tiwai]

Do I understand correctly that, in your example above, the linkage from git (MyPackage) to OBS MyPackage repo is done in the last step (osc meta ...)?
Then yes, an easier way to achieve this would be helpful, instead of forcing user to edit the line manually.

[andrii-suse]

Yeah it looks osc meta cannot easily tweak xml (i.e. add the xml tag) from command line at the moment. But on the other hand: is it really needed for this use case if we implement osc rmkpac --force --scmsync <url> <PackageName> ?

[tiwai]

The osc rmkpac with --scmsync would work, too. Then how will your steps above change?

[andrii-suse]

fyi rmkpac proposal is in #1794 , feel free to add code review there