Subject: Re: --first-parent plus path limiting

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:11:35 -0800

Johannes Sixt <[email-masked]> writes:

> I was expecting that it works like "First follow the first-parent, and
> then simplify the history with respect to builtin-fetch.c."

If you first follow the first-parent, the result will by
definition not have any merges, so there is nothing left to
simplify.  History simplification is about merge removal,
looking at all parents.

Removing commits from a single strand of pearls that do not
touch the specified pathspecs is called "--dense" (which is on
the default) and can be disabled with "--sparse".

So, no, it is not a matter of definition, as "first follow the
first-parent then simplify" does not make much sense.