Re: make update error

["Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.com>]

On Sep 1, 2009, at 4:07 AM, Bernt Hansen wrote:

> Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:
>
>> Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:
>>
>>> git pull counts, compresses, receives objects, resolves deltas,
>>> updates and fails with this message:
>>>
>>> error: Entry 'Makefile' not uptodate. Cannot merge.
>>>
>>> As far as I know Makefile is up-to-date.
>>>
>> You might also want to have a local branch, where you can keep any  
>> local
>> modifications, e.g. if the changes to the Makefile were deliberate  
>> and
>> you wanted to keep them, then you could save the Makefile temporarily
>> (mv Makefile /tmp/Makefile), do the above commands, then create the  
>> local branch:
>>
>>   git branch local
>>
>> change to it:
>>
>>   git checkout local
>>
>> (note that checkout has a couple of related but different meanings).
>> Move the modified Makefile back and commit the changes:
>>
>>   mv /tmp/Makefile .
>>   git commit -a
>>
>> When it it time to pull again, you can change back to the (pristine)
>> master branch and pull:
>>
>>   git checkout master
>>   git pull
>>
>> Then you can rebase your local changes on top of the new bits:
>>
>>   git rebase master local
>>
>> It's a good way to keep a few local modifications and carry them  
>> forward
>> to any new version of org (of course, if the new version and your  
>> changes
>> change the same area of a file, you might end up with merge  
>> conflicts that
>> you'll have to resolve: but most of the time, it just works).
>
> There's a description of how to do this local branch with rebase
> automagically at
>
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-faq.php#keeping-local-changes-current-with-Org-mode-development
>
> There's not need to change back to the master branch - just pull (with
> rebase) into your local branch.
>
> -Bernt

Aloha Nick and Bernt,

Thanks for the very useful advice and the pointer to the FAQ that  
deals specifically with my situation.  I very much appreciate not  
receiving a RTFM reply.

It turns out I had edited the top of the Makefile, per the  
instructions, to configure it to my Mac setup.  To my mind, this edit  
was a "configuration" and not a "local change."  When I looked through  
the FAQ I didn't stop to read "How can I keep local changes and still  
track Org mode development" because I hadn't made any changes to the  
lisp source of org-mode, so thought I couldn't possibly have made a  
"local change."   I think I can see now how the distinction I was  
making between a "local change" and a "configuration" isn't sensible  
from a developer's point of view, but I'm not sure I would have been  
able to do so without falling back on my graduate school training in  
linguistic anthropology!

I'm looking forward to isolating my local changes from the master  
branch, a task I am scheduling now with C-c r ...

All the best,
Tom