How to download older version of ginac through git

Question

I want to download older libraries from a git repository to desktop. How one does it? For example I am trying to download ginac_1-6-5 from

http://www.ginac.de/ginac.git/

Answer 1

1. Clone the repository.

The link you gave is to the web interface to the repository. The actual repo is at git://www.ginac.de/ginac.git.

$ git clone git://www.ginac.de/ginac.git
Cloning into 'ginac'...
remote: Counting objects: 20743, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (7128/7128), done.
remote: Total 20743 (delta 17104), reused 16648 (delta 13581)
Receiving objects: 100% (20743/20743), 5.98 MiB | 1.72 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (17104/17104), done.

Now you have a complete copy of the repository and can check out any older version you like.

2. See if they tagged their releases.

Tags give a name to certain commits, usually associated with a release. Not all projects use them, but this one does.

$ git tag -l
ginac_1-6-3
ginac_1-6-4
ginac_1-6-5
ginac_1-6-6
relase_0-5-1
release_0-5-0
release_0-5-2
release_0-5-3
...

3. Check out a release.

Since a clone is the complete history, you can check out any release you like.

git checkout ginac_1-6-5

4. Follow the "To install from git" instructions.

Many projects don't check in all their generated files, so the install process from the repository can be different. For example, ./configure is a generated file. So you'll have to follow the special "To install from git" instructions in INSTALL.

Answer 2

Alternatively, check out the archive of past releases at https://www.ginac.de/archives/.