Re: Heads up: major rebase -i -p rework coming up

From: Marc Branchaud <marcnarc@xiplink.com>
Date: Jan 26, 2009, 16:10 UTC
Message-ID: <497DE08D.2030306@xiplink.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0901242056070.14855@racer>

Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> 
> - $sha1'
> 
> 	for merge and goto, if a $sha1 ends in a single quote, the 
> 	rewritten commit is substituted (if there is one)

I find this notation fairly unintuitive. I'm more inclined to let users specify their own names for important parts of the rebase.

I guess that's what Junio's 'mark' command is for, but not having seen a proper explanation of 'mark', I suggest instead a more inline method: an 'as' keyword. Any command in a todo script can be followed (on the same line, before the SHA1 value) with 'as <name>' allowing <name> to appear later in the script to refer to the result of the earlier command.

So the script in the example becomes

	pick as start A
	pick C
	pick as bottom D
	goto start
	pick B
	merge bottom was E

I find that much easier to understand. Especially when real SHA1 values are floating around everywhere, I think this notation will help users get things right.

This approach also allows a commit name "A" to consistently refer to the original commit, which I think also makes things easier for users.

M.