Notes on my R / Git workflow

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These are some notes on my current R git work flow, which is quite fluid, and git has enough quirks that I usually forget part of it !

Creating Projects

I’ve used both RStudio and Eclipse.  RStudio seems easier to create a ‘project’ and add a local git repo to it, but Eclipse has more functionality (like roxygen comment generation) so I prefer eclipse. 

In Eclipse 3.7, I have both Statet and eGit installed. To start create a new project normally (File > New > R Project), and add any starting stuff like R and Data folder, a readme etc…

Right click on the project name and select Team > Share Project.  Select Git and then create a local Git Repo.  For some reason eclipse has a check box to create the repo within the Eclipse workspace, and then gives you a warning that its not recommended.

Then there are a few ways to commit, Right click on project and Team > Commit, use the Git Staging view tab,   Whatever route, select which files to commit and enter a comment.  Your name and email is stored in Preferences > Team > eGit.

Backing Up ‘locally’

To ‘backup’ (and potentially make available anywhere) I have a Linux server called Pegasus  tucked away somewhere that does many, many jobs.  it’s actually an old work desktop and a tad underpowered, but it does the job.


One job is to act as a backup server, and that goes for git too.  using two pieces fo software, Gitosis and gitview. (although it seems Gitosis hasn’t been updated in a few years, and isn’t being actively maintained, which means no new bugs !)

To add a new repo to my server
on local machine;

cd~/gitosis-admin
kate gitosis.conf

add lines for the new repo, save and close

git commit -a -m "add repos for xxx"

Then cd to the repo your adding

git remote add pegasus gitosis@pegasus:PaulHurleyMisc.git

git push pegasus master

and the repo is magically on the server.  I can even visit http://pegasus/viewgit/index.php and see the new repo sitting there.

 Backing up to the cloud AKA Github

For things I’m happy to share, I have used github as a great cloud based way to share code (https://github.com/paulhurleyuk).  The thing that always gets me is the need to create the repo on github before pushing to it.

So create a repo on Github

then, on your local machine
git remote add github https://www.github.com/paulhurleyuk/testrepo.git

git push github master

and I then get an error that something conflicts (because I have a file with the same name in both, usually readme.md), so need to do

git pull

and then merge/drop any changes before doing git push again….

 

Some assorted Links

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Git

 http://ao2.it/wiki/How_to_setup_a_GIT_server_with_gitosis_and_gitweb

http://lostechies.com/jasonmeridth/2010/05/25/gitosis-and-gitweb-part-1-setup/

 

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