Subject: Re: Rebase v.s. fast forward

From: Jan Hudec <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:00:36 +0100

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 15:50:04 -0800, Alan wrote:
> I am dealing with a kernel branch of a branch that undergoes frequent
> rebases and I want to know the easiest way of handling things.
> 
> The tree is pulled from kernel.org. Patches are applied to the tree by a
> developer here on a branch.  I take that branch, make my own branch, add
> drivers and other modifications and publish to a different repo.
> 
> Now that 2.6.29 is occurring, every time there is a new RC candidate, he
> rebases the tree and tells everyone to rebuild.  Since the developers on
> my projects have their own branches off of my tree, rebuilding
> everything is starting to look like a big pain.
> 
> Is there a way to take a rebased repository and apply the changes in a
> manner that does not require reconstructing everything from patches?

No, there is not. When you have some changes on top of rebased branch, you
have to rebase them.

> Can you fast forward on a rebased repo or are you just hosed?  (Or would
> that be considered "frebasing"?)

Well, fast-forward condition is when you pull and you have no local changes.
Which I guess is not your case.

I am not sure whether pull properly detects the case, where the pulled branch
got rebased (so strictly-speaking it's not a fast-forward), but there are no
local changes, but since you probably do have some local changes, it would
not help you.

-- 
						 Jan 'Bulb' Hudec <[email-masked]>