For a long time, I was working with SVN as my default version control system. I liked it a lot for its clear syntax.

When I switched to the git, I was surprised how overloaded the checkout sub-command really is:

— You need to switch to another branch? Use git checkout.

— You need to revert modifications made to files? Use git checkout.

In SVN you have separate commands for each of these tasks.

Starting with git 2.23 we have new sub-commands to address this:

• git switch to switch between branches
• git restore to undo all modifications made

I'm sure this new syntax will be a great help for newcomers from SVN. Consider this new workflow. Extremely clear to me!

pasha@PG480 MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable (master)
$ git switch docker-tests
Switched to branch 'docker-tests'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/docker-tests'.

pasha@PG480 MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable (docker-tests)
$ rm README.md

pasha@PG480 MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable (docker-tests)
$ git status
On branch docker-tests
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/docker-tests'.

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
        deleted:    README.md

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

pasha@PG480 MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable (docker-tests)
$ git restore README.md

pasha@PG480 MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable (docker-tests)
$ git status
On branch docker-tests
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/docker-tests'.
nothing to commit, working tree clean

Postgres' sleep functions are not particularly useful, as they should only be utilized for demonstration purposes (like provoking locking situations and then trying to find out who blocked whom). After years of using the pg_sleep() function, which takes seconds as its input argument, I one day discovered that there are more convenient functions that even accept human readable input!

SELECT now();
SELECT pg_sleep_for('5 minutes');
SELECT  /* then do something …. */
SELECT pg_sleep_until('tomorrow 03:00');

More tips and tricks from our very own Kaarel Moppel!

When testing Golang projects you'll notice that test results are cached for as long as their corresponding source files remain unchanged. This is generally advantageous, unless your test cases behave differently depending on the environment that they are running in, just like our pg_timetable scheduler depends on a PostgreSQL database.

Before Go 1.12 the known solution was to use the GOCACHE=off environment variable, e.g.

$ GOCACHE=off go test ./internal/pgengine -v

However starting from Go 1.12 this leads to the error:

$ GOCACHE=off go test ./internal/pgengine -v
build cache is disabled by GOCACHE=off, but required as of Go 1.12

As a solution one may clear the build cache explicitly before running tests:

$ go clean -cache

Or only clean the test cache:

$ go clean -testcache

Another approach is to use environmental variables:

$ GOFLAGS="-count=1" go test ./internal/pgengine -v

Working on a project, you might consider that one folder is more important than others. For example, src folder might be more relevant to you as a developer than doc, test, or samples, you name it. Or you may want source files to be listed first, e.g. *.c, *.go...

To order the list of files in git diff output, one may use git's diff.orderFile option.

If you are working with PostgreSQL for example, you may want such an order:

src/include/* 
src/common/* 
src/port/* 
config/* 
src/makefiles/* 
src/template/* 
src/backend/* 
src/fe_utils/* 
src/bin/* 
src/interfaces/libpq/* 
src/pl/* 
contrib/* 
src/interfaces/* 
doc/* 
src/test/*

To achieve this:

• create a file with the proper list, e.g. .gitorderfile
• run git config diff.orderFile .gitorderfile

You're done!