Re: Pulling one commit at a time.

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2009, 22:33 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr5v2qhws.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20090824060710.6117@nanako3.lavabit.com>

Nanako Shiraishi <nanako3@lavabit.com> writes:

Show 21 quoted lines

> When your histories look like this:
>
>       A                 your 'master'
>      /
>  ---X---U---V---W---Y   public 'master' (your 'origin')
>
> ... you can fetch first.
>
>  git fetch origin
>
> Then look at the history in gitk
>
>  gitk master origin
>
> And find the commit you are interested in merging (U in the above
> picture). And merge it.
>
>  git merge origin~3
>
> Replace "origin~3" in the example above with whatever commit you want to
> merge the entire history leading to it.

A good description.  Thanks, Nana.

Novice readers should notice the careful wording used here. She says "merge the entire history leading to it" instead of simply "merge the commit". Merging a commit in git always means merging the entire history leading to that commit, so they mean the same thing to people who know git well, but it avoids a misunderstanding that, if you did

    $ git merge V

it might apply the effect of only V, ignoring what U did, on top of your current state A. It doesn't.

       A-------M         your 'master'
      /       / 
  ---X---U---V---W---Y   public 'master' (your 'origin')

To create a commit that has only the effect of a single commit, you would need to cherry-pick it.

    $ git cherry-pick V

will give you

       A-------V'        your 'master'
      /
  ---X---U---V---W---Y   public 'master' (your 'origin')

where "git diff A V'" is a moral equivalent of "git diff U V".