Re: Recording the current branch on each commit?

From: Jeremy Morton <admin@game-point.net>
Date: Apr 27, 2014, 17:27 UTC
Message-ID: <535D3DF8.4020904@game-point.net>
In-Reply-To: <1748955386.11457068.1398588660139.JavaMail.zimbra@dewire.com>

On 27/04/2014 09:51, Robin Rosenberg wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

>> Currently, git records a checksum, author, commit date/time, and commit
>> message with every commit (as get be seen from 'git log').  I think it
>> would be useful if, along with the Author and Date, git recorded the
>> name of the current branch on each commit.  The branch name can provide
>> useful contextual information.  For instance, let's say I'm developing a
>> suite of games.  If the commit message says "Added basic options
>> dialog", it might be useful to see that the branch name is
>> "pacman-minigame" indicating that the commit pertains to the options
>> dialog in the Pacman minigame.  Basically, I'm saying that well-named
>> branches can and do carry useful contextual information that oughtn't to
>> be thrown away.  Currently, when you delete that branch, you lose the
>> branch name altogether.
>>
>> So what do you think?  Would it be good to have a patch to add this feature?
>
> Branch names are usually poorly named, so often you don't lose much. One way

Speak for yourself - I give my branches useful names. :-) I definitely feel that I am often losing useful contextual information by throwing away the branch name.

> some people to is to always merge with --no-ff, that way you see the branch
> name in the merge commit.

But surely, it's recommended with Git that you try to avoid doing --no-ff merges to avoid commit noise? Also, it is a lot more hassle (and no doubt, CPU cycles) to track down where a branch was merged to try and figure out which branch name a commit pertained to, not to mention the fact that the commit could've been moved since. Nothing short of tagging the commit with the branch name when the commit is made will definitely record the branch name at the time of committing.

> A very popular way of tracking context is to add some id, such as a bugzilla issue
> number, to the header or footer of the commit message. Often a branch contains many
> issues, but the branch itself isn't very interesting. Tools like gitblit, gitweb,
> gerrit etc can easily be configured to link to the issue using a regular expression.

Yes, and I have done this kind of thing in the past. However you really don't want to put the bug# on every single commit pertaining to that bug; you have to go to the effort of looking the bug# up every time, you'll sometimes forget, and besides it takes up space that could be used for a commit message. As short commit messages are valued in Git, it's particularly bad to waste space this way. Much better would be to include the bug# as part of the branch name, and then if you record the branch name upon checkin you always get a reference to the bug#.

Also, you don't always have something you can link a commit to in an issue tracker. You may just be implementing a feature that has been agreed upon, independently of any such tracker. In that case, there's no bug# to link to.

-- 
Best regards,
Jeremy Morton (Jez)