git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: [PATCH RFC] gitk: Allow commit editing

From
Michal Sojka <sojka@os.inf.tu-dresden.de>
Date
Aug 19, 2011, 12:23 UTC
Message-ID
<87obzlwpx0.fsf@steelpick.2x.cz>
In-Reply-To
<20110818223346.GA8481@sigill.intra.peff.net>
On Thu, 18 Aug 2011, Jeff King wrote:
Show 17 quoted lines
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 09:56:11PM +0200, Michal Sojka wrote:
> 
> > Hi, this is a proof of concept patch that allows editing of commits
> > from gitk. I often review patches before pushing in gitk and if I
> > would like to have an easy way of fixing typos in commit messages etc.
> > 
> > So the patch adds "Edit this commit" item to gitk's context menu and
> > the actual editing is done by non-interactively invoking interactive
> > rebase :-) and git gui.
> 
> Invoking rebase behind the scenes makes me very nervous. In particular:
> 
>   1. There is nothing to indicate to the user that they are rewriting a
>      string of commits, which is going to wreak havoc if any of the
>      commits have been published elsewhere (either pushed somewhere, or
>      even present in another local branch). I.e., rebasing generally
>      needs to be a conscious decision of the user.

I added a warning if the edited commit is contained in a remote branch. Would you consider this sufficient?

Show 5 quoted lines
>   2. Even if you accept the hazard of rewriting commits, you don't pass
>      "-p" to rebase. So it will linearize your history. I don't know how
>      robust "-p" is these days, and if it's up to the challenge of
>      people using it to rebase potentially large segments of complex
>      history.

I added "-p" to rebase. I do not know about the robustness of "-p" as well, but is anything goes wrong during the rebase, git rebase --abort hopefully reverts everything.

> So I think your idea is sane, and if you use it appropriately (by
> editing commits in recent-ish linear stretches of history) your patch
> works fine. But I really worry that it is going to be a problem for less
> clueful users to stumble across in the menu.
See the next version of the patch in a follow-up mail.
-Michal
Next: Michal Sojka
Message 1 of 10 in “Re: [PATCH RFC] gitk: Allow commit editing”
  1. Michal SojkaAug 19, 2011
  2. gitk: Allow commit editingMichal Sojka, Aug 19, 2011
  3. Jeff KingAug 25, 2011
  4. Michal SojkaAug 25, 2011
  5. Jeff KingAug 25, 2011
  6. gitk: Allow commit editingMichal Sojka, Aug 27, 2011
  7. Jeff KingSep 7, 2011
  8. Paul MackerrasSep 8, 2011
  9. Michal SojkaSep 13, 2011
  10. Jeff KingAug 25, 2011

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.