Re: Command-line interface thoughts

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jun 9, 2011, 17:20 UTC
Message-ID: <20110609172000.GA30983@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTinyYjXeg_khoU1dJVenP0mO2++hsw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 01:15:38PM -0400, Jay Soffian wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> > So the index is not quite simply a set of four trees. The presence of
> > various stages for each entry tells us the progress of resolution.
> 
> However, it would be useful I think to expose it as four separate
> trees. During conflict resolution, I often want to look at the
> conflicted files in these various states, and end up using various
> incantations that are somewhat baroque.

Oh, I do agree that giving easier access to those things when you want them is reasonable. I just think that it can't _replace_ diffing with the index, which is able to look at all of the trees at once and present you with a useful subset.

Show 5 quoted lines

> In fact, my first step after a conflicted merge is:
> 
>   $ git tag -f ours HEAD
>   $ git tag -f theirs MERGE_HEAD
>   $ git tag -f base $(git merge-base HEAD MERGE_HEAD)

Do note that this last one is only almost true. There may be multiple bases, and what merge-recursive does with them may mean that what ends up in the "base" index stage for a file may not match what is in the first first merge-base (e.g., if a recursive virtual merge creates a new base).

But most of the time, it is right. :)

-Peff