Re: [PATCH] Fix incorrect wording in git-merge.txt.

From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>
Date: Mar 3, 2008, 20:39 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.00.0803031519360.2899@xanadu.home>
In-Reply-To: <vpqlk4zoacw.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, Matthieu Moy wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org> writes:
> 
> > You don't really merge a commit _object_.
> > You merge with one or more other commits, tipycally identified by a 
> > branch name or a tag.
> 
> Strictly speaking, you can merge any commit, not necessarily a branch
> or a tag. That can be "git merge 66f0a4d" or whatever. Admitedly, the
> common case is to merge a tag or a branch (which is why I keep it in
> parentheses).

Yes, and I've been meaning the same all along.

> Now, I don't understand the distinction you seem to be making between
> "commit" and "commit object".

Objects are what the low level storage is made of. Conceptually, The merge operation doesn't work at the object level, but rather at the history graph level. You don't merge objects, you merge history. I think it is unnecessary and probably best not to mention the word "object" in this case.

The alternative is to provide more detailed explanation, such as:

   A merge is made by joining one or more history line to the current 
   'HEAD' branch.  Those history lines are denoted by their terminating 
   commit.  To identify them, the SHA1 name of the corresponding commit 
   object is used, or more frequently the name of the branch or tag 
   currently pointing at such commit objects.

but while this is more correct strictly speaking as the relation between a merge and a commit object is made, I don't know if this is any more enlightening to those who ope to learn something from the reading the documentation.

Nicolas