Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] Add git-sequencer prototype documentation

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 8, 2008, 10:37 UTC
Message-ID: <200807081237.51456.jnareb@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <1215277204-20926-1-git-send-email-s-beyer@gmx.net>

On Sat, 5 July 2008, Stephan Beyer wrote:

> +git-sequencer(1)

> +TODO FILE FORMAT

Show 10 quoted lines

> +edit <commit>::
> +mark <mark>::
> +merge [options] <commit-ish1> <commit-ish2> ... <commit-ishN>::
> +pick [options] <commit>::
> +patch [options] <file>::
> +pause::
> +ref <ref>::
> +reset <commit-ish>::
> +squash [options] <commit>::
> +squash [options] --from <mark>::

A few comments and ideas:

1. Splitting a patch

I cannot comment well on git-sequencer, as I have started using StGIT patch management interface instead of git-rebase in times when there were no "git rebase --interactive". Nevertheless working with StGIT is a bit similar to working with interactive rebase...

I don't find myself wanting to join two patches into one (to squadh a commit) perhaps because when I want to add something to a commit (to a patch) I simply go to this patch, edit files, and refresh the patch. From time to time however I find myself SPLITTING a patch, for example extracting something added "by the way"/"while at it" into separate commit (like late separate better documenting project_index file format from adding optional description field to project_index file format).

Currently I don't see easy way to do this with git-sequencer.

2. Patch based rebase

git-rebase by default, and for speed, uses git-format-patch / git-am pipeline (utilizing '--rebasing' option to git-am to avoid changing commit messages, even if they do not follow commit message conventions). If you want for plain "git rebase" to use git-sequencer, it should be easy to support this "engine"; therefore perhaps it would be good to add some equivalent of "git format-patch" to the TODO file format.

3. Checking rebase

Usually when you are interacting with upstream by sending patches by email, the last part before sending series of patches is git-rebase on top of current work. It would be nice if there were some way to have "git rebase" (via git-sequencer) to check that all commits (perhaps with some explicitly stated in TODO file exceptions) passes pre-commit hook (checking for whitespaces and conflict markers), and if possibly also either test suite, or relevant parts of test suite.

So perhaps extending TODO format by "check <script>" or "check-all <script>"?

I'm just not sure if it is worth adding to TOD file format...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland