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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox•com>
To: git@vger•kernel.org
Cc: "Christian Couder" <christian.couder@gmail•com>,
	"SZEDER Gábor" <szeder@ira•uka.de>
Subject: BUG: "cherry-pick A..B || git reset --hard OTHER"
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2016 10:58:42 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqlgvs28bh.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com> (raw)

I was burned a few times with this in the past few years, but it did
not irritate me often enough that I didn't write it down.  But I
think this is serious enough that deserves attention from those who
were involved.

A short reproduction recipe, using objects from git.git that are
publicly available and stable, shows how bad it is.

    $ git checkout v2.9.3^0

    $ git cherry-pick 0582a34f52..a94bb68397
    ... see conflict, decide to give up backporting to
    ... such an old fork point.
    ... the git-prompt gives "|CHERRY-PICKING" correctly.

    $ git reset --hard v2.10.2^0
    ... the git-prompt no longer says "|CHERRY-PICKING"

    $ edit && git commit -m "prelim work for backporting"
    [detached HEAD cc5a6a9219] prelim work for backporting

    $ git cherry-pick 0582a34f52..a94bb68397
    error: a cherry-pick or revert is already in progress
    hint: try "git cherry-pick (--continue | --quit | --abort)"
    fatal: cherry-pick failed

    $ git cherry-pick --abort
    ... we come back to v2.9.3^0, losing the new commit!

The above shows two bugs.

 (1) The third invocation of "cherry-pick" with "--abort" to get rid
     of the state from the unfinished cherry-pick we did previously
     is necessary, but the command does not notice that we resetted
     to a new branch AND we even did some other work there.  This
     loses end-user's work.  

     "git cherry-pick --abort" should learn from "git am --abort"
     that has an extra safety to deal with the above workflow.  The
     state from the unfinished "am" is removed, but the head is not
     rewound to avoid losing end-user's work.

     You can try by replacing two instances of

	$ git cherry-pick 0582a34f52..a94bb68397

     with

	$ git format-patch --stdout 0582a34f52..a94bb68397 | git am

     in the above sequence, and conclude with "git am--abort" to see
     how much more pleasant and safe "git am --abort" is.

 (2) The bug in "cherry-pick --abort" is made worse because the
     git-completion script seems to be unaware of $GIT_DIR/sequencer
     and stops saying "|CHERRY-PICKING" after the step to switch to
     a different state with "git reset --hard v2.10.2^0".  If the
     prompt showed it after "git reset", the end user would have
     thought twice before starting the "prelim work".

Thanks.

             reply	other threads:[~2016-12-06 18:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-12-06 18:58 Junio C Hamano [this message]
2016-12-07 14:31 ` BUG: "cherry-pick A..B || git reset --hard OTHER" Christian Couder
2016-12-07 18:36 ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-07 20:04   ` Junio C Hamano
2016-12-07 20:35     ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-07 23:21       ` Duy Nguyen
2016-12-09 11:33     ` Duy Nguyen
2016-12-09 11:34       ` [PATCH] rebase: rename --forget to be consistent with sequencer Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy
2016-12-09 11:34         ` [PATCH] revert, cherry-pick: rename --quit to be consistent with rebase Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy
2016-12-09 18:07       ` BUG: "cherry-pick A..B || git reset --hard OTHER" Junio C Hamano
2016-12-09 19:24         ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 19:28           ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-10 11:00           ` Duy Nguyen
2016-12-10 21:23             ` Junio C Hamano
2016-12-08  7:50   ` Christian Couder
2016-12-07 21:51 ` [PATCH 1/5] am: Fix filename in safe_to_abort() error message Stephan Beyer
2016-12-08 10:21   ` Paul Tan
2016-12-07 21:51 ` [PATCH 2/5] am: Change safe_to_abort()'s not rewinding error into a warning Stephan Beyer
2016-12-07 21:51 ` [PATCH 3/5] Add test that cherry-pick --abort does not unsafely change HEAD Stephan Beyer
2016-12-07 21:51 ` [PATCH 4/5] Make sequencer abort safer Stephan Beyer
2016-12-08 15:28   ` Johannes Schindelin
2016-12-08 17:27     ` Junio C Hamano
2016-12-08 19:17       ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 18:33         ` Junio C Hamano
2016-12-09 19:01           ` [PATCH v2 1/5] am: Fix filename in safe_to_abort() error message Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 19:01           ` [PATCH v2 2/5] am: Change safe_to_abort()'s not rewinding error into a warning Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 19:01           ` [PATCH v2 3/5] Add test that cherry-pick --abort does not unsafely change HEAD Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 19:01           ` [PATCH v2 4/5] Make sequencer abort safer Stephan Beyer
2016-12-10 19:56             ` Christian Couder
2016-12-10 20:04               ` Jeff King
2016-12-10 20:20                 ` Stephan Beyer
2016-12-09 19:01           ` [PATCH v2 5/5] sequencer: Remove useless get_dir() function Stephan Beyer
2016-12-07 21:51 ` [PATCH " Stephan Beyer

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