Re: Editing the root commit

From: Martin von Zweigbergk <martin.von.zweigbergk@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 25, 2012, 17:22 UTC
Message-ID: <CAOeW2eGnz6d6XdLneH1CQJ+ziD_YJ7yN1N5_YWvULX3nxFsewQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vy5nhvo0z.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

>
>    $ git rebase [-i] --root --onto nitfol
>
> looks at the entire history leading to where you are, and replays
> everything you have done onto the tip of 'nitfol'.
>
> What if we do not say --onto here?

Or even leaving out the --onto for that matter. If I understand correctly, "git rebase --root --onto nitfol" is (more-or-less) just syntactic sugar for "git rebase nitfol", see http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/181024/focus=182054.

I have an old branch from around the time of that thread that make this fact (that "--root --onto" is syntactic sugar) a little clearer in the code. I'll try to finally send out some of those patches as soon as I can.

Show 7 quoted lines

>  What _should_ this command mean to a naïve user?
>
>    $ git rebase [-i] --root
>
> I think it should mean "replay all my history down to root".  The
> original root commit should become the new root commit in the
> rewritten history.

I agree, and in this case, the --root flag would not just be syntactic sugar.

Martin