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Re: Why can't I use git-bisect to find the first *good* commit?

From
Ddemerphq <demerphq@gmail.com>
Date
Mar 28, 2011, 18:57 UTC
Message-ID
<AANLkTikADLZvN0N==_H47O1vcrap1_Mcf7vW69d5sh0d@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<vpqvcz35cjk.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>
On 28 March 2011 20:23, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:
Show 15 quoted lines
> Andrew Garber <andrew@andrewgarber.com> writes:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Matthieu Moy
>> <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:
>>
>>> Then which commit do you specify as "good"?
>>
>> Any ancestral commit *on the same branch* which is know to be working.
>
> What is the point is finding manually a commit *on the same branch* when
> the tool can do that for you? You don't know how old the breakage is, so
> finding the first good commit will take some time. Knowing that the
> other branch is good gives you a hint that the common ancestor between
> branches should be good, so a good start would be to find the common
> ancestor.
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It is just as likely NOT to be useful.

It could just as easily have been fixed in the other branch. So knowing its good wont tell you where it was broken.

This started off with:
      o--o--o--B
     /
  --o--o--o--o--G
So lets say that the reality of each node looks like this:
      B--B--B--B*
     /
  --B--B--B--G--G*
How does knowing that G* is good help us find what broke B* again?
Your description matches the case of something like this:
      B--B--B--B*
     /
  --G--G--G--G--G*
But what about something like this:
      Bx--B--B--B*
     /
  --Gz--By--B--Gx--G*

How does knowing that G* is good help you to find that Bx broke the code in the B* branch again?

Presumably 'By' broke the G* branch which was then fixed by Gx and none of this information helps you at all identify that Bx broke the B* branch.

Whereas a plain binary search on the B* branch would eventually find that Bx was responsible.

>> Perhaps you could give a concrete example of where you could use it
>> for multiple branches simultaneously?
>
> Well, see my previous email.

Where you said "It's not uncommon in real life to face the "it works in branch foo but not in branch bar, where did it break?" problem. And one expects a great tool such as Git to be able to answer it."

Seems to me that this is trying to cram two questions into one:

A) where did branch foo diverge from branch bar and B) which commit between that ancestor and bar did things break.

Of course im probably missing something important here. Id like to know what it is tho. :-)

cheers, Yves

-- 
perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"
Previous: Matthieu MoyNext: Andrew Garber
Message 15 of 23 in “Why can't I use git-bisect to find the first *good* commit?”
  1. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMar 28, 2011
  2. Andreas EricssonMar 28, 2011
  3. code.sculptor@gmail.comMar 28, 2011
  4. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  5. Vincent van RavesteijnMar 28, 2011
  6. Christian CouderMar 28, 2011
  7. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  8. Johannes SixtMar 28, 2011
  9. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  10. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  11. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  12. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  13. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  14. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  15. demerphqMar 28, 2011
  16. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  17. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  18. Andrew GarberMar 28, 2011
  19. Jeff KingMar 28, 2011
  20. Jeff KingMar 28, 2011
  21. Matthieu MoyMar 28, 2011
  22. Andreas EricssonMar 29, 2011
  23. Michael WittenMay 22, 2011

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