Re: [PATCH] Documentation/git-rebase.txt: fix -f description to match actual git behavior.

From: Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 19, 2014, 09:57 UTC
Message-ID: <87y4ukajiz.fsf@osv.gnss.ru>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqioltza8z.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> A sentence "--force has no effect under --preserve-merges mode" does
>>> not tell the readers very much, either and leaves them wondering if
>>> it means "--preserve-merges mode always rebases every time it is
>>> asked, never noticing 'ah, the history is already in a good shape
>>> and there is no need to do anything further'" or "--preserve-merges
>>> mode ignores --force and refuses to recreate the history if the
>>> history is in the shape the mode deems is already desirable."
>>
>> In fact there is no way to force rebase when --preserve-merges is given.
>> Neither --force nor --no-ff has any effect.
>>
>> Maybe some clarification could be given in --preserve-merges
>> description, provided it's not clear that "has no effect" for --force
>> means that one can't force the rebase in this case.
>
> I am not sure if that is an intended behaviour or simply a bug (I
> rarely use preserve-merges myself, so I offhand do not know for
> certain).

It seems that there is some problem there anyway. Probably a slight misfeature rather than a bug, as --preserve-merges always pretends it does something, even when it does not:

$ git log --oneline --graph --decorate
*   6f25bd5 (HEAD, topic) M
|\  
| * c5a4a43 C
* | 3c6ab7a (master) N
* | 99ff328 B
|/  
* 130ae2d A
$ git rebase --preserve-merges master
Successfully rebased and updated refs/heads/topic.
$ git log --oneline --graph --decorate
*   6f25bd5 (HEAD, topic) M
|\  
| * c5a4a43 C
* | 3c6ab7a (master) N
* | 99ff328 B
|/  
* 130ae2d A
$

"git reflog topic" doesn't show any changes either.

-- 
Sergey.