Solution - Git / Installing the notebooks for part 2?

Part 2 (2019)
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Update - Thanks to James post below, I learned/realized that the dl2 course notebooks currently live under
‘fastai/fastai_docs/dev_course’

and not alongside the first course:
‘fastai/course-v3/nbs/’

where I was expecting it (as dl2)…since that’s where dl1 lives.

hence wasting a lot of time with git when in fact I already had the notebooks, but didn’t realize it.

Original post:
It seems I must be overlooking something but after spending 20 minutes, time to ask here:

What is the proper git command to sync and get the notebooks for the part 2 course?

I can see the notebooks of course here:

But can’t seem to be able to get a local copy to thus work with.

*I’ve updated fastai, tried to clone, etc. the notebooks but they refuse to pull down for me. I also pip installed the dev version ala:
pip install “git+https://github.com/fastai/fastai#egg=fastai[dev]”

Thanks!

1 Like
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@LessW2020 whilst folks would love to help you, you’ll need to do more to provide the information needed for that help to be provided. Please review these suggestions:

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fyi -
1 - I did search, multiple times in fact -it usually is pulling stuff for other part 2 (ala 2018), etc.
2 - I also included what steps I’ve taken above.

Anyway I’ll go re-read the whole 2019 thread and rewatch the class to see if I missed it somewhere.
Thanks

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Hi Less,
What do you mean by “they refuse to pull down for me”?
Do you mind to share the commands and their outputs you see?

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Hi Herchu,
I mean that after running a relevant command (which I’ll list below), my fastai folder has nothing contained for the “course-v3/nbs/dl2”…I still have “course-v3/nbs/dl1” but no notebooks for part 2.

I tried as follows:
1 - conda update fastai

2 - git clone https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs/tree/master/dev_course -
this failed

3 - git clone https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs
did an update but no change re: v3 part 2 nbs

4 - conda install - c fastai fastai
thought this might force something in but just said all packages installed

5 - pip install “git+https://github.com/fastai/fastai#egg=fastai[dev]”
this installed a few things but again, no v3 part nbs

6 - made a fork and tried to git clone that but said my ‘fastai_docs’ dir was not empty.

7 - Opened a notebook on github directly looking for a ‘download’ option but no luck there.

Anyway, I’m watching the lesson 8 again right now and taking notes. Maybe I missed something but if you have any input I would appreciate it!

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Hi Less,

This should get you going. I’d suggest deleting your local copy of fastai_docs or, in the event that you have some local changes there that you’d like to keep, you can just move the repo to a temporary location outside of where you do the following. Also note that the part II is a separate repository from part I. Part I is in the fastai/course-v3 and Part II is in fastai/fastai_docs repo (most likely because it just started and its development is still in progress).

  1. Make sure you aren’t in another repository. i.e. you shouldn’t be in course-v3 at all.
    Note: My setup on most machines is I have a develop folder in my home directory that all my projects/repos live.

  2. git clone https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs.git

  3. cd fastai_docs

  4. conda activate "Your fastai environment"

  5. jupyter notebook

  6. Browse to dev_course/dl2 in the jupyter notebook file browser.

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Thanks James - that was the issue. I already had it from the earlier git commands I tried…but, I was looking for it to be where dl1 was - under course-v3…had no idea it was under the docs section.

Anyway, wasn’t a git issue at all but ‘where it lives’ issue.

Thanks very much!
Less

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Glad, thanks to James, it’s working now.

If you need/want to commit your changes to Github the procedure is a bit different. Let me know if you are interested and I’ll post it.

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Hi Herchu,
Would definitely be interested in knowing how to commit here, so if you could post that would be very useful!
Thanks very much!
Less

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The standard way is to use the “fork-and-branch” workflow. It’s a bit complicated because it allows to manage several use-cases and probably overkill for this course notebooks. There’s a simpler workflow that may work for you.

The general idea is to pull the last version of the notebooks from the official fast.ai repository but push your changes to a remote repository of your own.

In your local repository you will have two branches: master and your own (for example: ‘MY_WORK’). On master there will be the clean, updated fast.ai version, on ‘MY_WORK’ your work along with the fast.ai changes.

Setup

First create an empty repository in your Github. For instance, ‘MY_FASTAI_DOCS’ (you can mark it private if you like.)

$ git clone https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs
$ cd fastai_docs
$ git branch MY_WORK
$ git checkout MY_WORK
$ git remote add upstream https://github.com/MY_GITHUB_ID/MY_FASTAI_DOCS
$ git remote -v
origin	https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs (fetch)
origin	https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs (push)
upstream	https://github.com/MY_GITHUB_ID/MY_FASTAI_DOCS (fetch)
upstream	https://github.com/MY_GITHUB_ID/MY_FASTAI_DOCS (push)
$ git push upstream MY_WORK

Before work (keeping your repo updated)

$ git checkout master
$ git pull origin master
$ git checkout MY_WORK
$ git merge master

Working on your notebooks

$ git checkout MY_WORK # if not already in your branch
... EDIT ...
$ git commit
$ git push upstream MY_WORK

Important: EDIT THE NOTEBOOKS ON A COPY OF THEM. Merging changes in Jupyter notebooks is only for the very braves.
Note: Replace MY_FASTAI_DOCS, MY_WORK and MY_GITHUB_ID with your chosen names.

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For completion, here is a full “fork-and-branch” workflow.

Setup

In Github fork fastai_docs. You can change the name of your new repository if you like, but you cannot make it private.

$ git clone https://github.com/MY_GITHUB_ID/fastai_docs
$ cd fastai_docs
$ git remote add upstream https://github.com/fastai/fastai_docs
$ git fetch upstream
$ git pull upstream master
$ git branch MY_BRANCH

Keep your repo in sync with fastai

$ git checkout master
$ git pull upstream master
$ git merge upstream/master

Working on your repo

$ git checkout MY_BRANCH
$ git merge master  # brings fastai changes into your branch.
…EDIT NOTEBOOKS…
$ git commit
$ git push origin MY_BRANCH

Like before replace MY_WORK and MY_GITHUB_ID accordingly (and also your repo name if you had changed)
Again, edit a copy of the notebooks to avoid having to resolve conflicts during merge.

This workflow is ideal if you plan to collaborate with fast.ai or other open source projects.

8 Likes
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I set up as per your instruction. It is very useful. Thanks.
Can you recommend any source where I can learn more about git?

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Here’s what worked for me:
Forcing myself to add versioning to my little experiments. I’d usually find a way around it because of my laziness but really using it day to day will make you find out all of the fine details and how for ex: Diff branches work, how would you submit a PR to the fastai repo, etc.

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Thanks, I will try to do that same :slight_smile:

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git is an enormous piece of software and, to be honest, I don’t have the patience to learn it by reading books or similar.
The cool thing is that for everyday tasks knowing just a few thing is enough. For the rest there’s always google :wink:
Anyhow https://help.github.com/en has a lot of info as well as Stackoverflow. In SO you can also find: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/315911/git-for-beginners-the-definitive-practical-guide

Kickstarting a repo may seem overkill at first, but it pays off quickly. You’ll be able to test different approaches easily, go back and forth the changes, review them while keeping a local and a cloud backup. Besides with GitHub you can review your notebooks online without having to start Jupyter and/or the dev environment.

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Thanks so much @regrettable-username! This worked for me. Was the information on how to get the notebooks posted elsewhere in this Forum? If so I could not find it.

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You’ll find the GitHub repo in https://forums.fast.ai/t/lesson-8-2019-discussion-topic/41323?u=herchu at the “Course notebooks” link.

In the lecture Jeremy mentioned that the notebooks are under dev_course/dl2 directory.

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hey, thanks for asking this question! thank god! I was looking for the nb too and wasnt able to find it. I thought I was bit “shy” to ask this question since it just seems that everyone can just figure it out on their own.

I truly meant to say thank you! :slight_smile:

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Not everyone could just figure it out on their own. I spent a lot of time in perplexity before I stumbled upon this post. The way to get the notebooks was not clearly specified.

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I used your solution. Thanks!