~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

Publishing a branch

===================

Setting up a central repository

-------------------------------

While the centralized workflow can be used by socially nominating

any branch on any computer as the central one, in practice most

teams have a dedicated server for hosting central branches.

Just as it's best practice to use a shared repository locally,

it's advisable to put central branches in a shared repository.

Note that central shared branches typically only want to

store history, not working copies of files, so their enclosing

repository is usually creating using the ``no-trees`` option, e.g.::

  bzr init-repo --no-trees sftp://centralhost/srv/bzr/PROJECT

You can think of this step as similar to setting up a new cvsroot or

Subversion repository. However, Bazaar gives you more flexibility

in how branches may be organised in your repository. See

`Advanced shared repository layouts <shared_repository_layouts.html>`_

in the appendices for guidelines and examples.

Starting a central branch

-------------------------

There are two ways of populating a central branch with some initial

content:

 1. Making a local branch and pushing it to a central location

 2. Making an empty central branch then committing content to it.

Here is an example of the first way::

  bzr init-repo PROJECT  (prepare local repository)

  bzr init PROJECT/trunk

  cd PROJECT/trunk

			 (copy development files)

  cp -ar ~/PROJECT .     (copy files in using OS-specific tools)

  bzr add                (populate repository; start version control)

  bzr commit -m "Initial import"

                         (publish to central repository)

  bzr push sftp://centralhost/srv/bzr/PROJECT/trunk

Here is an example of the second way::

  bzr init-repo PROJECT  (prepare local repository)

  cd PROJECT

  bzr init sftp://centralhost/srv/bzr/PROJECT/trunk

  bzr checkout sftp://centralhost/srv/bzr/PROJECT/trunk

  cd trunk

  cp -ar ~/PROJECT .     (copy files in using OS-specific tools)

  bzr add                (populate repository; start version control)

  bzr commit -m "Initial import"

                         (publish to central repository)

  bzr push sftp://centralhost/srv/bzr/project/trunk

Note that committing inside a working tree created using

the ``checkout`` command implicitly commits the content to

the central location as well as locally. Had we used the

``branch`` command instead of ``checkout`` above, the

content would have only been committed locally.

Working trees that are tightly bound to a central location

like this are called *checkouts*. The rest of this chapter

explains their numerous features in more detail.