Antw: Re: [PATCH v2] merge-options.txt: correct wording of --no-commit option

> Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> +With ‑‑no‑commit perform the merge and stop just before creating
>> +a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further
>> +tweak the merge result before committing.
>> ++
>> +Note that fast‑forward updates do not need to create a merge
>> +commit and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with
>> +‑‑no‑commit.  Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not
>> +changed or updated by the merge command, use ‑‑no‑ff with
>> +‑‑no‑commit.
> 
> While the above is an improvement (so I'll queue it on 'pu' not to
> lose sight of it), I find the use of "do not need to" above somewhat
> misleading.  It solicits a reaction "ok, we know it does not need
> to, but it could prepare to create one to allow us to further muck
> with it, no?".
> 
> IOW, a fast‑forward by definition does not create a merge by itself,
> so there is nowhere to stop during a creation of a merge.  So at
> least:
> 
> 	s/do not need to/do not/

> 
> It also may be a good idea to consider detecting this case and be a
> bit more helpful, perhaps with end‑user experience looking like...
> 
>   $ git checkout master^0
>   $ git merge ‑‑no‑commit next
>   Updating 0d0ac3826a..ee538a81fe
>   Fast‑forward
>     ...diffstat follows here...
>   hint: merge completed without creating a commit.
>   hint: if you wanted to prepare for a manually tweaked merge,
>   hint: do "git reset ‑‑keep ORIG_HEAD" followed by
>   hint: "git merge ‑‑no‑ff ‑‑no‑commit next".
> 
> or even
> 
>   $ git checkout master^0
>   $ git merge ‑‑no‑commit next
>   warning: defaulting to ‑‑no‑ff, given a ‑‑no‑commit request
>   Automatic merge went well; stopped before committing as requested
>   hint: if you'd rather have a fast‑forward without creating a commit,
>   hint: do "git reset ‑‑keep next" now.
> 
> I do not have a strong preference among three (the third option
> being not doing anything), but if pressed, I'd say that the last one
> might be the most user‑friendly, even though it feels a bit too
> magical and trying to be smarter than its own good.
> 
> In any case, the hint for the "recovery" procedure needs to be
> carefully written.