Re: [PATCH] bisect reset: Allow resetting to any commit, not just a branch

From: Anders Kaseorg <andersk@mit.edu>
Date: Oct 12, 2009, 21:31 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.0910121708030.5105@dr-wily.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <7vr5t8coex.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> I offhand do not see a good rationale for such a shortcut to finish 
> bisect and switch to another branch (IOW, I understand "it is shorter to 
> type", but I do not see "it is often done and very useful"), but I am 
> open to be enlightened by a workflow where such a shortcut is useful.

I agree that ‘git bisect reset <branch>’ is a confusing shortcut. It only really made sense before Git supported detached HEADs, and you needed to be on a branch all the time. I think that lifting the arbitrary restriction to branch names makes it less confusing, but if you want to remove the argument altogether, that would eliminate the confusion entirely.

I had in mind only one case where ‘git bisect reset <commit>’ would be useful. I often don’t even remember what commit I was on before I started a bisect, much less believe that I want to immediately switch back to it. I would prefer to be able to clean the bisection state without checking out another commit at all, because that takes forever and invalidates my compiled tree. This is what ‘git bisect reset HEAD’ would do if it worked.

Perhaps it makes sense to add a command that just clears the bisection state. ‘git bisect stop’?

Anders