Re: [PATCH] [checkout-index] Give names to stages

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Dec 4, 2006, 02:00 UTC
Message-ID: <7v1wngv2rc.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <651451.91694.qm@web31813.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Luben Tuikov <ltuikov@yahoo.com> writes:

> One can now say "git-checkout-index --stage=ours ..."  or
> "git-checkout-index --stage=theirs ...", instead of having
> to remember the corresponding number assigned to each stage.

I really do not like to have this in checkout-index; I would rather keep checkout-index a purely plumbing thing. If there are valid and frequently appearing use cases that currently requires "checkout-index --stage=$n", I think that need should be addressed as a missing feature in the UI layer.

During a conflicted merge, you may run "diff --cc" in order to decide that you would want to take yours (or theirs), and that would be a good reason to wanting to checkout "your" version (or "their" version; but I do not think of a valid reason to want to say "checkout-index --stage=1"). From the UI point of view, it would make more sense to be able to say:

	$ git checkout --ours hello.c
	$ git checkout --theirs Makefile

If the user is interested in looking at raw copies of our and their version for comparison (not just "diff --theirs" kind of usage), it _might_ even make sense to be able to do:

	$ git checkout --stdout --ours hello.c >hello.c-ours
	$ git checkout --stdout --theirs hello.c >hello.c-theirs
        $ diff -u hello.c-ours hello.c-theirs

I do not particularly like the above overloaded meaning of "checkout" myself, but that would be something people who are used to "cvs up -p" might expect to be able to do.

If we were to do both of the above, then it might even make sense to make the first form (sans --stdout) to also mark the index entry after checking out the specified higher stage.

And the UI layer (Porcelain-ish) should be where we should add the "usability" and "human readability" bits.