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Re: RFC: Renaming "git rebase --onto"

From
Max Kirillov <max@max630.net>
Date
Mar 30, 2015, 21:53 UTC
Message-ID
<20150330215354.GB8771@wheezy.local>
In-Reply-To
<05D9209E-FAA2-44C8-9B98-B00997AF5779@JonathonMah.com>
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 01:49:34PM -0700, Jonathon Mah wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> During a few years of discussing git operations with colleagues, I’ve found the “git rebase --onto” operation particularly ambiguous. The reason is that I always describe a rebase operation as “onto” something else (because of the English phrase “A is based on B”). For example: 
> 
> $ git rebase new-base  # “Rebase HEAD onto new-base (from merge-base of HEAD and new-base)"
> $ git rebase new-base my-branch  # “Rebase my-branch onto new-base (from merge-base of my-branch and new-base)”
> 
> Personally, I understand “git-rebase --onto new-base old-base” as meaning “rebase from old-base to new-base”. Some prepositions that might make this clearer:
> 
> $ git rebase --from old-base new-base  # “Rebase HEAD onto new-base, from old-base"
> $ git rebase --after old-base new-base  # “Rebase commits on HEAD after old-base HEAD onto new-base"
> $ git rebase --excluding old-base new-base  # “Rebase HEAD onto new-base, excluding commit old-base (and its parents)"
> 
> In all cases this would change the order of the arguments compared to --onto, making it more consistent with the  no-option rebase.
> 
> What do others think? Is my view of “onto” common or unusual?

I have never liked the --onto syntax also. It's not only ugly but still fails to cover some needs. So in my, you know, clone of rebase I have made completely different syntax. You can take a look at it here: https://github.com/max630/git-rebase2/#usage

I just copy the line here, without descriptions: git rebase2 [options] <dest> [[<source_from>]..[<through1>..<through2>]..[<source_to>]] [<target>]

-- 
Max
Previous: Michael J Gruber
Message 5 of 5 in “RFC: Renaming "git rebase --onto"”
  1. Jonathon MahMar 30, 2015
  2. Jonathan NiederMar 30, 2015
  3. Junio C HamanoMar 30, 2015
  4. Michael J GruberApr 2, 2015
  5. Max KirillovMar 30, 2015

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