Newbie: report of first experience with git-rebase.

Hello,

I've made my first attempt at tracking my changes to upstream git repository using git-fetch/git-rebase workflow. I did three commits to my master branch, and then upstream incorporated two of them in slightly modified form, so that some conflicts are to be expected. I did git-fetch followed by git-rebase, and finally have got the end result I hoped for, but there were some confusion along the way. I think I'd post the log of the session here along with my thoughts so that an interested person could see how it works for a newbie (my thoughts and non-git actions at the time of rebasing are marked with 'me>' prefix):

$ git fetch [...] $ git rebase origin First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it... HEAD is now at 9c51414... Merge branch 'maint' into HEAD

Applying Fix a typo.

Wrote tree f5b2feefc021486eae9d2d84c69e0d6ead027a9d
Committed: 983e907b1360c17c7ac925d6035d82cc7243f406

Applying Use new syntax (-m option) for git-merge.

error: patch failed: Documentation/core-tutorial.txt:878 error: Documentation/core-tutorial.txt: patch does not apply Using index info to reconstruct a base tree... Falling back to patching base and 3-way merge... Auto-merged Documentation/core-tutorial.txt CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in Documentation/core-tutorial.txt Failed to merge in the changes. Patch failed at 0002.

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

me> Nice, this conflict is expected. me> Editing Documentation/core-tutorial.txt to resolve the me> conflict... Conflict is resolved so that the working file matches me> upstream version.

$ git rebase --continue You must edit all merge conflicts and then mark them as resolved using git add

me> Nice helpful message, -- need to do git-add

$ git add Documentation/core-tutorial.txt $ git rebase --continue

Applying Use new syntax (-m option) for git-merge.

No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'?

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

me> What?! I just did the git-add! Moreover, before I did git-add, the me> error was different and helpful. Something went wrong? me> Well, it's unlikely, but maybe I made a mistake of not specifying me> the 'origin'?

$ git rebase --continue origin

Applying Use new syntax (-m option) for git-merge.

No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'?

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

me> No luck :( A few seconds of thinking... Hmm... no-op patch, do I me> need to skip it? Let's try the --skip:

$ git rebase --skip

Applying Fix SYNOPSIS.

error: patch failed: Documentation/git-merge.txt:10 error: Documentation/git-merge.txt: patch does not apply Using index info to reconstruct a base tree... Falling back to patching base and 3-way merge... Auto-merged Documentation/git-merge.txt CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in Documentation/git-merge.txt Failed to merge in the changes. Patch failed at 0003.

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

me> Aha, that's it! But why git didn't just skip the no-op patch me> automatically? Well, anyway , now I have a new expected conflict, me> and I'm sure I just want to skip this patch, so let's try exactly me> that:

$ git rebase --skip Dirty index: cannot apply patches (dirty: Documentation/git-merge.txt)

me> No luck :( Well, let's go the long way, -- edit conflicting me> Documentation/git-merge.txt (so that it matches upstream),

$ git add Documentation/git-merge.txt $ git rebase --skip Nothing to do.

me> Well, I already knew this will work, but why should I edit the file me> and then git-add it just to skip the patch? Is there better way? me> Anyway, the "Nothing to do." above is slightly confusing, -- did it me> actually skip the patch? So let's check the result:

$ gitk

me> The result is as expected, -- the only patch on top of current origin me> HEAD, -- nice.