Glossary
This page contains explanations of the terms in the context subpatch. The terms are not sorted alphabetically. They are sorted according to relevance. More important terms are at the top, less important terms are at the bottom.
multi repository management/setup/problem
The multi repository problem is when your project consists of multiple repositories and there are interdependencies between these repositories. E.g. when you must checkout multiple repos, because your build spans across multiple
On this website the problem is sometimes called multi repository setup. The process of handling such a project is called multi repository management.
superproject
The superproject is the parent project in a multi repository setup. It's often
a git repository itself, e.g. for git submodule. When using subpatch the
superproject has the configuration file .subpatch at its top level directory.
subproject(s)
The subproject or subprojects are the external projects, often called (third party) dependencies, that are added to the superproject.
Note: The terms super- and sub-projects are always relative to a specific project setup. It might be the case that the superproject of a project (e.g. a C library with third party dependencies) is the subproject of another project (e.g. a C++ application, using the library).
Naming in different contexts
The terms superproject/subproject and project/dependency are specific to a given context, but can be used interchangeably. Here is an overview:
| Context | Name for super… | Name for sub… |
|---|---|---|
| package manager | project/package | (source) dependencies |
| multi repo problem | superproject | subprojects |
| multi repo problem | super repository | sub repositories |
| multi repo problem | superrepo | subrepos |
version control system (VCS)
A version control system is a tool to track changes to a set of files and provides auxiliary functional.
An very old implementation of a version control system is the revision control system (RCS). Current popular version control systems are
Other names for version control system are
- source control management (SCM) (used on the git website)
- source code control system (SCCS)
- source code management
A non exhaustive list of non so popular version control systems is
application-level package manager (APM)
The term application-level package managers (APM) describes package managers that are integrated into the ecosystem of a programming language. Examples:
See also the Wikipedia entry Application-level package managers. These APMs are in contrast to package managers of Linux distributions, like rpm and dpkg, and embedded build systems, like buildroot and Yocto.
patch and patch file
A patch or patch file is a textual representation of a source code modification. It consists of a patch message describing the change and a diff of the changed code lines.
When using git, you can create a patch file with the command git format-patch
from a commit object. For example:
$ git format-patch e311aaded0a49dced437f2f4be0d2fce4c698132 -1
0001-website-fix-warning-in-mkdocs-serve.patch
$ cat 0001-website-fix-warning-in-mkdocs-serve.patch
From e311aaded0a49dced437f2f4be0d2fce4c698132 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stefan Lengfeld <stefan@lengfeld.xyz>
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2025 23:10:18 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] website: fix warning in 'mkdocs serve'
---
website/ref/fosdem25.md | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/website/ref/fosdem25.md b/website/ref/fosdem25.md
index 5dae49e..dca35b8 100644
--- a/website/ref/fosdem25.md
+++ b/website/ref/fosdem25.md
@@ -26,6 +26,6 @@ Thanks!
Content:
1. Present call to action
-2. Present [homepage of subpatch](/)
+2. Present [homepage of subpatch](../index.md)
3. (Maybe) Do a showcase
4. Repeat call to action :-)
--
2.43.0
Patches are a very old concept of distributed software development. Developers used them even before SCM tools like cvs, svn, and git existed. For some software projects, e.g. the Linux kernel, patch files sent to a mailing list are an integral part of the development model even today.
vendoring
TODO Explain