jdbaldry / git-mtimes

Proof-of-concept for storing and restoring mtimes in git

git-mtimes

Exploration into storing file mtimes in git so that Make can be used after cloning.

Why

GNU Make is a great tool for avoiding excessive rebuilding but CI systems often clone the repository, losing all file context, and making Makefiles ineffective.

Example

The Makefile in this repository has phony targets that demonstrate how to store and restore mtimes from a file that is committed to the git repository. In a real-world repository, there would likely be commit hooks or CI steps that would run these commands.

Store the mtimes

Stores the mtimes of all git files. For convenience, they are stored in an executable script but a structured file may be more useful to other tooling.

$ make mtimes

Update the mtimes

Runs the executable script to touch up every file's mtime.

$ make update

Display the mtimes

Presents the mtimes, can be used before and updating to show the changes.

$ make display

Set mtimes to current time

$ make current