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[PATCH 0/3] FAQ entries for merges and modified files

From
brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date
Sep 12, 2020, 20:48 UTC
Message-ID
<20200912204824.2824106-1-sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
This series introduces a few new FAQ entries on various topics.

The first describes why squash merging doesn't work for long-running branches. This is confusing for a lot of folks, including some pretty advanced developers, so it seems worth documenting.

The second explains why reverts are not applied on merge if the change has been cherry-picked to both sides. We have documentation on this already in git-merge(1), but here we also advise using a rebase instead. I still see folks confused by this, so hopefully making it a little more visible (with a little more explanation) will be helpful.

The third departs from the topic of merges to discuss modified files. I frequently see folks with perpetually modified files for one of two reasons: case-sensitivity problems and problems where someone failed to run the smudge or clean filter. In fact, we saw one of those problems recently on the list. The FAQ entry explains how to handle both situations and provides suggestions to prevent the former from happening again.

I've answered all of these questions recently (some multiple times), so I figured I'd document this so that folks can hopefully discover more of this themselves and solve their problems more quickly.

brian m. carlson (3):
  docs: explain why squash merges are broken with long-running branches
  docs: explain why reverts are not always applied on merge
  docs: explain how to deal with files that are always modified
 Documentation/gitfaq.txt | 85 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 85 insertions(+)
Next: brian m. carlson
Message 1 of 13 in “FAQ entries for merges and modified files”
  1. 0/3 FAQ entries for merges and modified filesbrian m. carlson, Sep 12, 2020
  2. 3/3 docs: explain how to deal with files that are always modifiedbrian m. carlson, Sep 12, 2020
  3. Martin ÅgrenSep 13, 2020
  4. 2/3 docs: explain why reverts are not always applied on mergebrian m. carlson, Sep 12, 2020
  5. Martin ÅgrenSep 13, 2020
  6. 1/3 docs: explain why squash merges are broken with long-running branchesbrian m. carlson, Sep 12, 2020
  7. Martin ÅgrenSep 13, 2020
  8. brian m. carlsonSep 13, 2020
  9. Junio C HamanoSep 12, 2020
  10. 0/3 FAQ entries for merges and modified filesbrian m. carlson, Sep 20, 2020
  11. 2/3 docs: explain why reverts are not always applied on mergebrian m. carlson, Sep 20, 2020
  12. 1/3 docs: explain why squash merges are broken with long-running branchesbrian m. carlson, Sep 20, 2020
  13. 3/3 docs: explain how to deal with files that are always modifiedbrian m. carlson, Sep 20, 2020

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