Re: Suggestion: rebase [--onto <newbase>] [<upstream>][..[<branch>]]

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 17, 2012, 20:17 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr4yyqe26.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <hbf.20120117gdfh@bombur.uio.no>

Hallvard Breien Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I think
> 	git rebase [--onto <newbase>] [<upstream>][..[<branch>]]
> would be a more readable syntax for what rebase is doing.  Easier
> to see which argument means what without staring at the manpage.
> "..[<branch>]" without <upstream> implies --root.

I do not offhand see a huge issue if you come up with a patch that allows users to additionally say:

    $ git rebase upstream..topic
    $ git rebase --onto there upstream..topic

what they express with

    $ git rebase upstream topic
    $ git rebase --onto there upstream topic

today.

However, "git rebase ..topic" to mean "everything down to root from topic" is not OK; lack of one side in dotted range defaults to HEAD everywhere else and such a change will introduce a huge discrepancy.