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From: Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp•org>
To: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail•com>
Cc: git@vger•kernel.org
Subject: Re: request for documentation about branch surgery
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 11:51:02 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200907071151.03567.bruno@clisp.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <51419b2c0907061930k71e20b42rb347b9ab8923e437@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Elijah,

> When the cost of certain activities changes dramatically (which git
> does by making lots new things possible and fast), formerly "exotic"
> usecases can become natural and common -- and really helpful.

Yes. With cvs, I would not never have dared to do branch surgery. With
git, I can - assuming some documentation. "git clone", "git checkout",
"git commit" each serves a particular purpose, so one can understand
when to use which command. But for branch surgery, several commands
are available:
  - "git reset --hard"
  - "git rebase"
  - "git rebase --onto"
  - "git merge" (simple case, no merge commit)
The mapping from "How do I ..." questions to command is not easy,
therefore a user's manual like
  <http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html#rewriting-one-commit>
is needed.

Thanks for correcting me and showing simpler alternatives to what
I said.

Still, can someone please extend the cited chapter of the user's manual,
so that it answers these questions?
  - How do I change the last commit in a branch?       [DONE]
  - How do I change an older commit in a branch?       [DONE]
  - How do I insert some commits between other commits in a branch?
                                                       [TODO]
  - How do I reorder commits in a branch?              [TODO - mention "git rebase -i"]
  - How do I copy selected commits from a branch to another?
                                                       [DONE]
  - How do I cut a branch?                             [TODO]
  - How do I replace a branch tip with the contents of another branch?
                                                       [TODO]
  - How do I reconnect a branch to another branch point?
                                                       [TODO]

> I think
> the rebase command would be much easier to understand for new users if
> it used an "--against" before the first reference(*).

Don't know, this is just a cosmetic change. The thing that confused me
about "git rebase" is that its thinking is focused on the current branch.
Whereas when I'm doing branch surgery, I'm creating a new branch
bottom-up, so my thinking is "here I have some commits, what can I do
with them". It requires a good user's manual to map this to the right
"git rebase" command.

Bruno

  parent reply	other threads:[~2009-07-07  9:51 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-07-06 23:05 request for documentation about branch surgery Bruno Haible
2009-07-07  2:30 ` Elijah Newren
2009-07-07  3:45   ` Elijah Newren
2009-07-07  9:51   ` Bruno Haible [this message]
2009-07-07 10:06     ` Andreas Ericsson
2009-07-07  2:50 ` Junio C Hamano
2009-07-07 10:13   ` Bruno Haible
2009-07-07 11:03     ` Andreas Ericsson
2009-07-07 15:52     ` Junio C Hamano
2009-07-07 18:28 ` Daniel Barkalow

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