From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:16:03 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Test that the 'rebase -i' "reword" command always cherry-picks a commit.
Message-ID: <20100323191603.GB1382@progeny.tock>
In-Reply-To: <4BA8D263.8040602@xiplink.com>

Marc Branchaud wrote:
> Junio C Hamano wrote:

>> "rebase -i --no-ff"
>> already exists, and is probably a more natural way to do this than saying
>> "reword" but not rewording anything, no?
>> 
>> I would actually say "rebase -f P" would be even easier and clearer,
>> especially as...
[...]
> I was confused about the purpose of "rebase -f".  Jonathan Nieder even
> pointed me to it when I posted my original patch for "rebase -i --no-ff", but
> the description in the man page threw me:
>
> 	Force the rebase even if the current branch is a descendant of
> 	the commit you are rebasing onto. Normally the command will
> 	exit with the message "Current branch is up to date" in such a
> 	situation.
>
> I didn't realize that this is exactly the situation that "rebase -i" normally
> deals with (-i basically implies -f), and that "rebase -f" would do exactly
> what I wanted "rebase -i --no-ff" to do.

Yes, sorry for not following up on that comment.  The point is that
rebase without --interactive never fast-forwards.  So if you do not need
to edit your branch interactively, it should work for your purpose.

> But I think I see an approach that might make sense:
> 
>  - Teach "rebase -i" to recognize the -f parameter (instead of --no-ff).

I like --no-ff better. :)

>  - Update rebase's man page to better explain -f.

While at it, I should mention another documentation problem: rebase’s
man page does not explain that rebase --interactive will fast-forward at
the beginning of the series.  It should say that rebase -i will do that
and rebase without -i will not.  I can prepare a patch to fix it this
evening.

>  - Update revert-a-faulty-merge.txt to explain how to use "rebase [-i] -f".

Sounds interesting.  Simpler to use "rebase (-f | -i --no-ff)", I think.
Or maybe rebase could learn a no-op --no-ff option to make it easier to
switch between it and rebase -i, and this would become
"rebase (-f | -i) --no-ff".

Jonathan