7
Before someone else can get a copy of your work, you need to
8
agree on a transfer technology.
9
You may decide to make the top level directory of your branch
10
a network share, an approach familiar to Windows users.
11
Linux and OS X users might prefer access to be
12
via SFTP, a secure protocol built-in to most SSH servers.
13
Bazaar is *very* flexible in this regard with support for
14
lots of protocols some of which are given below.
16
=========== ======================================================
18
=========== ======================================================
19
file:// Access using the standard filesystem (default)
20
sftp:// Access using SFTP (most SSH servers provide SFTP).
21
bzr:// Fast access using the Bazaar smart server.
22
ftp:// Access using passive FTP.
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http:// Read-only access to branches exported by a web server.
24
=========== ======================================================
26
As indicated above, branches are identified using URLs with the
27
prefix indicating the transfer technology. If no prefix is given,
28
normal filenames are assumed. For a complete list of supported
29
protocols, see the ``urlspec`` online help topic or the
30
`URL Identifiers <../user-reference/bzr_man.html#url-identifiers>`_
31
section of the Bazaar User Reference.
33
A reminder re shared repositories
34
---------------------------------
36
Before getting a copy of a branch, have a quick think about
37
where to put it on your filesystem. For maximum storage
38
efficiency down the track, it is recommended that branches
39
be created somewhere under a directory setup as a shared
40
repository. For example::
45
You are now ready to grab a branch from someone else and
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To get a copy of an existing branch, use the ``branch`` command.
54
bzr branch URL [directory]
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If a directory is not given, one is created based on the last part of
57
the URL. Here are some examples showing a network share URL and an
58
sftp URL respectively::
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bzr branch m:/cool-trunk
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bzr branch sftp://bill@mary-laptop/cool-repo/cool-trunk
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This example shows explicitly giving the directory name to use for the
66
bzr branch /home/mary/cool-repo/cool-trunk cool
68
Time and space considerations
69
-----------------------------
71
Depending on the size of the branch being transferred and the
72
speed and latency of the network between your computer and the
73
source branch, this initial transfer might take some time.
74
Subsequent updates should be much faster as only the
75
changes are transferred then.
77
Keep in mind that Bazaar is transferring the
78
complete history of the branch, not just the latest snapshot.
79
As a consequence, you can be off the network (or disconnected
80
from the network share) after ``branch`` completes but you'll
81
still be able to ``log`` and ``diff`` the history of the
82
branch as much as you want. Furthermore, these operations
83
are quick as the history is stored locally.
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Note that Bazaar uses smart compression technology to
86
minimize the amount of disk space required to store version
87
history. In many cases, the complete history of a project
88
will take up less disk space than the working copy of
91
As explained in later chapters, Bazaar also has support for
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lightweight checkouts of a branch, i.e. working trees with
93
no local storage of history. Of course, disconnected usage
94
is not available then but that's a tradeoff you can decide
95
to make if local disk space is really tight for you. Support for
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limited lookback into history - *history horizons* - is
97
currently under development as well.
99
Viewing branch information
100
--------------------------
102
If you wish to see information about a branch including where it came from,
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use the ``info`` command. For example::
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If no branch is given, information on the current branch is displayed.
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removed
doc/en/user-guide/branching_a_project.txt
