Re: [PATCH] Enable tree (directory) history display

> Well, with history simplification, we still show merges that are required 
> to make the history _complete_, ie say that you had
> 
> 	  a
> 	  |
> 	  b
> 	 / \
> 	c   d
> 	|   |
> 
> and neither "a" nor "b" actually changed the file, but both "c" and "d" 
> did: in this case we have to leave "b" around just because otherwise there 
> would be no way to show the _relationship_, even if "b" itself doesn't 
> actually change the tree in any way what-so-ever.

> > Can you consider the default case to be simplify_history=1,
> > which is currently the default behaviour of git-rev-list.
> 
> Actually, for your case, you don't want _any_ merges, unless those merges 
> literally changed the tree from all of the parents.

> I think it would make sense to make that further simplification if the 
> "--parents" flag wasn't present. 
> 
> Hmm. Maybe something like this..
> 
> BTW! Junio, I think this patch actually fixes a real bug.
> 
> Without this patch, the "--parents --full-history" combination (which 
> you'd get if you do something like
> 
> 	gitk --full-history Makefile
> 
> or similar) will actually _drop_ merges where all children are identical. 
> That's wrong in the --full-history case, because it measn that the graph 
> ends up missing lots of entries.
> 
> In the process, this also should make
> 
> 	git-rev-list --full-history Makefile
> 
> give just the _true_ list of all commits that changed Makefile (and 
> properly ignore merges that were identical in one parent), because now 
> we're not asking for "--parent", so we don't need the unnecessary merge 
> commits to keep the history together.
> 
> Luben, does this fix the problem for you?