Re: Can we do better than "git checkout/add -p"
- From
D. Ben Knoble <ben.knoble@gmail.com>
- Date
- Aug 7, 2026, 20:12 UTC
- Message-ID
- <CALnO6CAEbiwRyJD+Uk_Aq0gKy-XB1=9PmOUwW6itOMCr+mBmwg@mail.gmail.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <xmqqfr0qexps.fsf@gitster.g>
On Fri, Aug 7, 2026 at 11:50 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
Show 30 quoted lines
> > "D. Ben Knoble" <ben.knoble@gmail.com> writes: > > > I raise this as the kind of interface we could learn from: emulating > > it might be a bit heavier (a full TUI?), but is certainly more > > convenient to use than the prompt-loop over hunks. > > Yes, the 'one hunk at a time' model was easy to implement and start > using, but its limitations are apparent. Users want to be able to > jump around, starting in the middle and returning to the top later, > for example. > > It is more or less orthogonal to the reason I started this > discussion, though, which is that limiting the direction in which > modifications flow restricts the workflow, burdens the user, and > makes the process error-prone. > > When I see a hunk, I can immediately tell if it is one of three > kinds (i.e., those we want to add, those we want to leave in the > working tree, and those we want to discard from the working tree). > But with 'git add -p' (especially with the original version of the > feature, before the 'e' (edit) command was introduced), the third > kind must be treated the same way as the second. Then, after I am > done with 'git add -p', I must go through the remaining hunks, sift > them into two categories (those we want to keep in the working tree > and those we want to discard), and run 'git checkout -p' to deal > with the latter. > > We should be able to improve this workflow without deviating from > the 'one hunk at a time' model.
Perhaps I emphasized the wrong attributes; what initially brought Fugitive to mind is the fact that one set of commands move hunks between staged, unstaged, and reverted.
Whether that's in a more complex interface or not, that seemed like the thrust of what you were after.
-- D. Ben Knoble