# Tracking other packages with DrWatson's tagsave

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, workflow, drwatson\
**Created:** [December 8, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345 "2023-12-08T21:30:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wave\_and\_matter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/wave_and_matter/32/202530_2.png) [@wave\_and\_matter](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/wave_and_matter)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345/1 "2023-12-08T21:30:44Z")

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I have recently become interested in DrWatson. One of the most important features seems to be “tagsave” which allows me to easily associate data with the julia/drwatson project where it was created, including the git version and file.

Now let’s assume that i have code spread among more than one project (+git archives). One might be a package A still under heavy development. The other one is a drwatson project B with scripts that run numerical experiments using A to produce some insights and numbers. To track how i generated results of B, i need to include the git hash of A into the tagsave output too.

I have not found any hint as to how i can easily do this.  
Are there any suggestions or existing workflows regarding this?  
Or does the tagsave-info somehow include the complete information about both git hashes in a non-straighforward way that i am overlooking?

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**Author:** ![Datseris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/datseris/32/13406_2.png) [@Datseris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Datseris)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 11:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345/2 "2023-12-10T11:03:02Z")

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Let me tell you how I tackle this, because at the moment I am in the exact same situation. I am developing two packages inside the `src` folder of my project.

At the moment the packages have the formal Julia Pkg structure. BUT, they do not have a `.git` folder yet. So in my src I have something like `src/PkgA/src/PkgA.jl`. Until I am ready to put these packages on GitHub, I commit all of their code in my “main” git history. Hence, in the eyes of git, the two packages and my normal scientific source are the same source code. Once I am ready to put these packages on GitHub I just track their main branch, so my Manifest.toml by itself tracks their commit and hence I don’t need to have them locally in my `src` file.

If you do not like this approach, there is a simple alternative. First, put the packages in your gitignore. Then, instead of using `tagsave` use the `tag!` function first, which will tag the data dictionary with current git status. Then, manually add two more fields to the data dictionary using the [`gitdescribe` function](https://juliadynamics.github.io/DrWatson.jl/stable/save/#DrWatson.gitdescribe) by explicitly giving this function the path to each of the packages.

At the moment there is no automated way to include several “sub source directories” to `tagsave`.

> [@wave\_and\_matter](#):
>
> I have not found any hint as to how i can easily do this.

Hm, maybe I should write something about this in the docs!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wave\_and\_matter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/wave_and_matter/32/202530_2.png) [@wave\_and\_matter](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/wave_and_matter)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345/3 "2023-12-11T22:32:21Z")

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Thanks for the detailed answer and the nice package. So in summary there are basically two situations, either the package A is a registered package and so A’s version in project B’s manifest will be part of B’s git commit, or gitdescribe can be used to track it explicitly by hand.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Datseris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/datseris/32/13406_2.png) [@Datseris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Datseris)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/tracking-other-packages-with-drwatsons-tagsave/107345/4 "2023-12-12T09:10:52Z")

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> [@wave\_and\_matter](#):
>
> ither the package A is a registered package and so A’s version in project B’s manifest

Not exactly. It does not have to be registered. As long as it is on GitHub and a normal package structure so that it can be tracked with `add`, that’s fine.