Re: Feature request: rebase -i inside of rebase -i

From: Sebastien Bruckert <sbruckert.dev@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 7, 2020, 09:16 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+KXf2A7L1fRC3+rmDaME186CYf4yS+-dBgy_FkEFVh887N7MA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20200406152450.GA9609@SDF.ORG>

Thank you for the more detailed explanation.

> I'm very interested in your opinion, but please note that we already have
> fixup commits for amending single commits in place.

Yes sorry, I still don't know everything about git and the way it works. But I'm working on it!

Show 9 quoted lines

> The problem that currently has no good solution arises when I realize
> halfway through a cleanup pass that things would be a lot simpler if I
> moved A to after C. "Hey, rather than adding A and then updating it to
> take C into account, how about I just do commit C first, and then add the
> final code of A in one step?"  That is, I want to change from O-A-B-C-D to
> O-B-C-A-D, but I didn't think of it until the rebase had reached O-A-B-C-.
>
> I think of it as "quilt pop" operation, taking patches off the
> applied list and putting them back on the todo.

Hmmm so you need some way to move C before your actual commit. To make it like a pseudo command, some kind of "git rebase --reattach C --after A"? This seems closer to your original idea.

Or why not modify "--edit-todo" to get commits from before your actual point? It could works like this:

Before: ``` #pick b2a96fe O #pick acb7459 A #pick 0dac4a4 B edit 1f54e51 C edit cda2a7e D ```

After: ``` #pick b2a96fe O edit 1f54e51 C pick acb7459 A pick 0dac4a4 B edit cda2a7e D ```

So that you are still at C, but keeping the changes you made before on A and B, and going through them only if you have conflicts.

If I understand your problem correctly (I hope), the more I think about it, the more this modified "--edit-todo" makes sense too me. Moreover, no problem for aborting, no big conceptual change, no change in the way rebase works. Only --edit-todo is enhanced.

It coincides with what you were saying at the beginning:

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> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 03:51:20PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > I thought that "git rebase -i" allows the todo file (i.e. list of
> > steps still to be performed) to be edited before continuing; would>
> your use case be supported by using that?
>
> Mostly, if I do it very carefully, which is why I thought it would
> be easy to add.
>
> I think I could manually add the commits to the start of the todo file,
> reset --hard to the old state, and rebase --continue.
>
> But cutting and pasting commit IDs from git log into the todo file,
> and putting fixup commits in the right place is annoyingly fiddly.
> That's exactly the sort of thing computers are good at.