From: Thomas Adam <thomas@xteddy.org>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:13:30 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] merge: allow "-" as a short-hand for "previous branch"
Message-ID: <BANLkTikA3dFQpZWC=TC3+zp2FS=uBBxf0Q@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vmxk164wd.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Hi,

On 8 April 2011 00:03, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Just like "git checkout -" is a short-hand for "git checkout @{-1}" to
> conveniently switch back to the previous branch, "git merge -" is a
> short-hand for "git merge @{-1}" to conveniently merge the previous branch.
>
> It will allow me to say:
>
>    $ git checkout -b au/topic
>    $ git am -s ./+au-topic.mbox
>    $ git checkout pu
>    $ git merge -

I agree this is is useful, but is there a danger of this being a
common typo, and people merging in previous branches a lot more often
than they ever intended?  In the case of "git checkout -" that's not
as fatal, but if I ever mistype "git merge -" -- I'm now left with an
unraveling exercise to do.

Hopefully it won't be an issue, as it's no worse than mistyping branch
names -- I suppose it's the sheer length of "-" in this case which
leads to more potential for problems.

-- Thomas Adam