Re: Announcing git-reparent

From: Mark Lodato <lodatom@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 14, 2013, 20:28 UTC
Message-ID: <CAHREChigPiRpwcM5QPEG8UJVro_fTN_a76AZaqowTWbwtw_M-g@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAA01Csoh24ppo37fzptzZKvFrzGQyhz-0eDTQsP8tZiTRQ2YwA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 3:03 AM, Piotr Krukowiecki <piotr.krukowiecki@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Just wondering, is the result different than something like
>
> git checkout commit_to_reparent
> cp -r * ../snapshot/
> git reset --hard new_parent
> rm -r *
> cp -r ../snapshot/* .
> git add -A
>
> (assumes 1 parent, does not cope with .dot files, and has probably
> other small problems)

The result is similar, but your script would also lose the commit message and author. I think the following would do exactly as my script does (untested):

git checkout commit_to_reparent git branch tmp git reset --soft new_parent git commit -C tmp git branch -D tmp

I actually contemplated using the above method in my script, rather than git-commit-tree and git-reset. In the end, I decided to stick with my original approach because it does not create any intermediate state; either an early command fails and nothing changes, or the git reset works and everything is done. Using the above might be cleaner for the --edit flag since it allows the git-commit cleanup of the commit message, but this would require much more careful error handling, and might make the reflog uglier.

I'd be interested to hear a git expert's opinion on the choice.