Re: [PATCH 1/2] revision: Denote root commits with '#'

> Kyle Marek <kmarek@pdinc.us> writes:
>
>>> So the condition we saw in your patches, !commit->parents, which
>>> attempted to see if it was root, needs to be replaced with a helper
>>> function that checks if there is any parent that is shown in the
>>> output.
>>> ...
>>> Hmm?
>> Okay, I see what you mean. Fixing --graph to avoid implying ancestry
>> sounds like a better approach to me.
> Sorry, I do not know how you drew that conclusion from my
> description.
>
> All I meant to convey is "roots are not special at all, commits that
> do not have parents in the parts of the history shown are, and care
> must be taken to ensure that they do not appear to have parents".

> And the argument applies equally to either of two approaches.
> Whether the solution chosen is
>
>   (1) to use special set of markers "{#}" for commits that do not
>       have parents in the displayed part of the history instead of
>       the usual "<*>", or
>
>   (2) to stick to the normal set of markers "<*>" but shift the graph
>       to avoid false ancestry.
>
> we shouldn't be special casing "root commits" just because they are
> roots.  Exactly the same issue exists for non-root commits whose
> parents are not shown in the output, if commits from unrelated
> ancestry is drawn directly below them.

>> That being said, I spoke to Jason recently, and he expressed interest
>> in optionally marking root commits so they are easy to search for in a
>> graph with something like /# in `less`. I see value in this,
> I do not mind to denote the "this commit may appear directly on top
> of another commit, but there is no ancestry" situation with a
> special set of markers that is different from the usual "<*>" (for
> left, normal and right) set.  I agree pagers are good ways to /search
> things in the output.
>
>> So would you be open to my modifying of the patch in question (patch
>> 1+2 squashed, I guess) to instead use "--mark-roots=<mark>" to
>> optionally mark root commits with a string <mark>, and pursue fixing
>> the --graph rendering issue in another series?
> I do not mind if the graph rendering fix does not happen yet again;
> IIRC the past contributors couldn't implement it, either.
>
> I think this new feature should be made opt-in by introducing a new
> option (without giving it a configuration variable), with explicit
> "--no-<option>" supported to countermand a "--<option>=#" that may
> appear earlier on the command line (or prepare your scripts for
> later introduction of such a configuration variable).

> I do find it troubling if the <option> has "root" in its name, and I
> would find it even more troubling if the feature somehow treated
> root commits specially but not other commits that do not have their
> parents shown.  It was the primary point I wanted to stress in the
> previous two message [*1*].

> [Footnote]
>
> *1* But if we do not think of a good option name without the word
>      "root" in it, I might be talked into a name with "root", as long
>      as we clearly describe (1) that commits that has parents that
>      are not shown in the history are also shown with these letters,
>      and (2) that new contributors are welcome to try coming up with
>      a new name for the option to explain the behaviour better, but
>      are not welcome to argue that the option should special case
>      root commits only because the option is named with "root" in it.