Git Usage Windows

Main page: Git usage

See also: Windows development

Kodi now uses Git as its version control system, or more simply, the method by which changes to the codebase are recorded. It offers many advantages to the Kodi development team, among them the ability for developers to make contributions from a wide variety of operating systems, including any version of the Windows operating system currently supported by Microsoft.

Working with the Kodi source code

Clone the main repository

Disk space requirements: As of September 2021, the main Kodi source code repository requires >730 MiB of available storage on your local system, and is constantly growing in size. Be sure you are willing to allocate at least that much disk space before attempting to clone it.

The main code repository is hosted at GitHub and available in its entirety for anyone to examine without registering for an account. In this guide we're demonstrating a few common tasks when working with the Kodi source code, using the official Git for Windows implementation to add Git functionality to Windows and TortoiseGit as the "frontend" for the examples showing a GUI interface instead of the command line.

Using the terminal

To download a copy of the main repository to your Downloads folder with read-only access and make that your working directory, you can use either the traditional Command shell or its newer replacement, PowerShell; both are included with every Windows installation by default and offer identical performance when using Git for Windows, the choice is dictated solely by what you're most familiar with.

• Command Prompt:

C:\> cd %USERPROFILE%\Downloads

C:\Users\Username\Downloads\> git clone https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git
Cloning into 'xbmc'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 580599, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1932/1932), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (455/455), done.
remote: Total 580599 (delta 987), reused 1763 (delta 910), pack-reused 578667
Receiving objects: 100% (580599/580599), 733.52 MiB | 4.54 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (431423/431423), done.
Updating files: 100% (9234/9234), done.

C:\Users\Username\Downloads\> cd xbmc

C:\Users\Username\Downloads\xbmc>

• Powershell:

PS C:\> Set-Location -Path "$Env:UserProfile\Downloads" -PassThru

Path
----
C:\Users\Username\Downloads

PS C:\Users\Username\Downloads\> git clone https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git
Cloning into 'xbmc'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 580599, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1932/1932), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (455/455), done.
remote: Total 580599 (delta 987), reused 1763 (delta 910), pack-reused 578667
Receiving objects: 100% (580599/580599), 733.52 MiB | 4.54 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (431423/431423), done.
Updating files: 100% (9234/9234), done.
PS C:\Users\Username\Downloads\> Set-Location -Path ".\xbmc"
PS C:\Users\Username\Downloads\xbmc>

For read/write access (Devs only) via ssh keys (your account needs to be added to the xbmc project on github)

  $ git clone [email protected]:xbmc/xbmc.git

For read/write access (Devs only) via user/pass (yourname needs to be added to the xbmc project on github)

  $ git https://[email protected]/xbmc/xbmc.git

TortoiseGit

• right click in your directory tree
• choose "Git Clone"

  

• replace yourname with your github user account
• when asking for the password type in your github password.
• you can also use ssh keys for authentication.

Fetch old branches and extra history

The following is ONLY useful for developers who wish to see extended Kodi history. Everyone else should stop here. Run this command from your tree. It requires git 1.6.5 or higher:

$ git fetch origin refs/old/heads/*:refs/remotes/svn-migration/* refs/replace/*:refs/replace/*

(Is this possible in gui too?)

Platform Settings

Case Insensitive File Systems

Git wants to run under a case sensitive file system but under OSX and Windows, the file system might be case insensitive. Make sure that core.ignorecase is properly set. Check with:

$ git config --list

if not set:

$ git config --global core.ignorecase true

(true is the default value for msysgit)

Line Endings

Windows users MUST use the git autocrlf feature. This is set by default by tortoise if you don't change it during the installation process. If it's not set, you can do so manually:

$ git config --system core.autocrlf true

or via the gui:

• right click on you cloned xbmc directory
• TortoiseGit -> Settings
• navigate to Git -> Config
• check that AutoClrf is marked

while you are there you should enter your name and email in the fields above. Otherwise you'll be asked during the first push.

Updating

When updating from the main git repo (by default git will call this 'origin'), you should always rebase on top of your history, unless you know what you're doing.

git pull --rebase

A safe bet is to set this to be done automatically.

$ git config branch.master.rebase true

with the gui:

• right click on the xbmc repo
• choose Git Sync...
• go to the option field in the bottom left
• press the down arrow and choose Fetch&Rebase
• press Fetch&Rebase
• press rebase (fast fwd) in the newly appearing dialog

  

Committing

commit your local work to your local repository:

• right click on the xbmc repo
• choose Git Commit -> "master"...
• type in a commit message
• choose the files to commit
• press ok

Pushing

Pushes your work from the local repository to the xbmc main repository at github.

Please use

git log

to look at the log before committing. If there are merge commits that you don't understand, please ask for help before pushing.

Never EVER force a push (non-fast-forward commit) to mainline. Ever. Doing so will result in your push privileges being revoked.

• right click on the xbmc repo
• TortoiseGit -> Push...
• press Ok

Attention: this will push all your local committed changes to the xbmc main repo. I dunno if you can only choose certain commits via the gui.