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Documentation/remote-helpers: Rewrite description

Rewrite the description section to describe what exactly remote
helpers are and the need for them. Also mention the curl family of
remote helpers as an example.

[jc: with readability fixes from Jonathan squashed in]

Signed-off-by: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
maint
Ramkumar Ramachandra 15 years ago committed by Junio C Hamano
parent
commit
00b84e9dbf
  1. 33
      Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt

33
Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt

@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ git-remote-helpers(1) @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ git-remote-helpers(1)

NAME
----
git-remote-helpers - Helper programs for interoperation with remote git
git-remote-helpers - Helper programs to interact with remote repositories

SYNOPSIS
--------
@ -12,11 +12,32 @@ SYNOPSIS @@ -12,11 +12,32 @@ SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
-----------

These programs are normally not used directly by end users, but are
invoked by various git programs that interact with remote repositories
when the repository they would operate on will be accessed using
transport code not linked into the main git binary. Various particular
helper programs will behave as documented here.
Remote helper programs are normally not used directly by end users,
but they are invoked by git when it needs to interact with remote
repositories git does not support natively. A given helper will
implement a subset of the capabilities documented here. When git
needs to interact with a repository using a remote helper, it spawns
the helper as an independent process, sends commands to the helper's
standard input, and expects results from the helper's standard
output. Because a remote helper runs as an independent process from
git, there is no need to re-link git to add a new helper, nor any
need to link the helper with the implementation of git.

Every helper must support the "capabilities" command, which git will
use to determine what other commands the helper will accept. Other
commands generally concern facilities like discovering and updating
remote refs, transporting objects between the object database and
the remote repository, and updating the local object store.

Helpers supporting the 'fetch' capability can discover refs from the
remote repository and transfer objects reachable from those refs to
the local object store. Helpers supporting the 'push' capability can
transfer local objects to the remote repository and update remote refs.

Git comes with a "curl" family of remote helpers, that handle various
transport protocols, such as 'git-remote-http', 'git-remote-https',
'git-remote-ftp' and 'git-remote-ftps'. They implement the capabilities
'fetch', 'option', and 'push'.

COMMANDS
--------

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