Subject: Re: [RFC] Rebasing merges: a jorney to the ultimate solution(RoadClear)

From: Sergey Organov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 09:00:03 +0300

Hi Buga,

Igor Djordjevic <[email-masked]> writes:

> On 14/03/2018 15:24, Sergey Organov wrote:
[...]
>> Thinking about it I've got an idea that what we actually need is
>> --no-flatten flag that, when used alone, will just tell "git rebase" to
>> stop flattening history, and which will be implicitly imposed by
>> --recreate-merges (and --preserve-merges).
>> 
>> Then the only thing the --recreate-merges will tune is to put 'merge'
>> directives into the todo list for merge commits, exactly according to
>> what its name suggests, while the default behavior will be to put 'pick'
>> with suitable syntax into the todo. And arguments to the
>> --recreate-merge will specify additional options for the 'merge'
>> directive, obviously.
>
> This seem to basically boil down to what I mentioned previously[2] 
> through use of new `--rebase-merges` alongside `--recreate-merges`, just 
> that you named it `--no-flatten` here, but the point is the same - and 
> not something Johannes liked, "polluting" rebase option space further.

Not quite so. The problem with --XXX-merges flags is that they do two
things at once: they say _what_ to do and _how_ to do it. Clean UI
designs usually have these things separate, and that's what I propose.

The --[no-]flatten says _what_ (not) to do, and --recreate-merges says
_how_ exactly it will be performed. In this model --no-flatten could
have been called, say --preserve-shape, but not --rebase-merges.

To minimize pollution, the _how_ part could rather be made option value:

--no-flatten[=<strategy>]

where <strategy> is 'rebase', 'remerge', etc.

In this case we will need separate option to specify strategy options,
if required, that will lead us to something similar to the set of merge
strategies options.

> I would agree with him, and settling onto `--rebase-merges` _instead_ of 
> `--recreate-merges` seems as a more appropriate name, indeed, now that 
> default behavior is actually merge commit rebasing and not recreating 
> (recreating still being possible through user editing the todo list).

I hope he'd be pleased to be able to say --no-flatten=remerge and get
back his current mode of operation, that he obviously has a good use
for.

-- Sergey