ppm install doesn't install from commit hashes

[alejandrosame]

Thanks in advance for your bug report!

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What happened?

Running

ppm install https://github.com/tidalcycles/pulsar-tidalcycles.git -b 207bb39e4c7e1789582cf35550002befee10b83b

yields the following output

Cloning https://github.com/tidalcycles/pulsar-tidalcycles.git ✓
Can't find the branch, tag, or commit referenced by 207bb39e4c7e1789582cf35550002befee10b83b

Pulsar version

1.109.0 and 1.111.0

Which OS does this happen on?

❓ Other(Please specify in the OS details field below)

OS details

NixOS 23.11

Which CPU architecture are you running this on?

x86_64/AMD64

What steps are needed to reproduce this?

After installing Pulsar, execute

ppm install https://github.com/tidalcycles/pulsar-tidalcycles.git -b 207bb39e4c7e1789582cf35550002befee10b83b

Additional Information:

No response

[DeeDeeG]

I think this is a limitation of the underlying git-utils library that we are using to interact with repositories.

There is a method to check out "references" such as HEADs (branches) or tags, but not for arbitrary commits. See: https://github.com/atom/git-utils#repositorycheckoutreferencereference-create.

I think the usage info for the -b/-t tags of ppm install must have been written while the implementation was still being explored, whereas I don't think checking out individual commits was actually gotten working at the time.

See also the PR where this functionality was originally implemented: pulsar-edit/ppm#13. It only really mentions tags and branches in the PR body/title, not commits. I do think stating it could check out a specific commit by its SHA was an oversight/error.

So, I think we do need to update the usage/help text to only state that it works for branches/tags, not commit SHAs.

(Otherwise, if anyone is up for implementing this, we may be able to accept an improvement to a forked git-utils to support checking out arbitrary commits, presumably in the --detached state.)

[DeeDeeG]

We at least have a PR to address the usage/help text of the -t/-b flags for package installation, as well as the corresponding error message when usage of those flags fails, so they don't claim installing from a commit hash works. (It will not work at the moment, unfortunately.)

PR to fix the usage/help text and error message: pulsar-edit/ppm#105

[alejandrosame]

Thanks!

I might look into contributing commit checkouts soon, since it will help my use case.