Re: [PATCH] cherry-pick: allow "-" as abbreviation of '@{-1}'

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 5, 2013, 16:27 UTC
Message-ID: <7vmwowm7bc.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <87wqo33v4f.fsf@hexa.v.cablecom.net>

Thomas Rast <trast@inf.ethz.ch> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Hiroshige Umino <hiroshige88@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> As "git cherry-pick -" or "git merge -" is convenient to
>> switch back to or merge the previous branch,
>> "git cherry-pick -" is abbreviation of "git cherry-pick @{-1}"
>> to pick up a commit from the previous branch conveniently.
>
> The first line is confusing.  Did you mean to invoke the existing 'git
> *checkout* -' and 'git merge -' functionality as a reason why 'git
> cherry-pick -' should exist?

I think that is what was meant. Just like "-" abbreviation is handy for users of "checkout" and "merge", "cherry-pick" might. I am not sure if you would often cherry-pick from the previous branch, but for the sake of completeness and uniformity, the guiding principle could be "at any point on the command line where a branch name is accepted, if a '-' could not possibly mean any other thing is wanted (e.g. doing something on the standard input), it should stand as the name of the previous branch".

I agree with everything you said in your review. The patch is going in the right direction, but it needs a bit more work.

Thanks.