From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:14:52 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 0/4] history: add squash subcommand to fold a range
Message-ID: <c517bce2-9f39-46ec-8509-bb0893e26ae2@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq8q7urfe1.fsf@gitster.g>

On 01/07/2026 14:47, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> The reason we're introducing the history command is to experiment with
>> providing a better user interface for rewriting history without being
>> bound by the limitations of "git rebase". So I think it would entirely
>> appropriate to try a different format for the squash message here. If it
>> turns out to be a success then we can see if we want to use it in "git
>> rebase" as well.
> 
> Do we know concretely things that are bad in the current way "rebase
> -i" works, so that we can experiment deviation from? 

Yes - if you apply the way "rebase -i" works to multiple commits you can 
end up with a message template that has a screen full of commented lines 
between uncommitted parts of the message. See the example below from 
earlier in the thread. It is not so much of a problem in "rebase -i" 
because it only fixes up a single commit at a time so all the commented 
messages end up at the top of the buffer and at worst you have a few "# 
fixup! ..." or "# squash! ..." lines mixed in with the uncommitted text.

     # This is the combination of 4 commits
     # This is the first commit message
     Base subject

     Base body

     # This is the second commit message
     # Another subject

     # Another body

     # This is the third commit message
     # fixup! Base subject

     # This is the fourth commit message
     # amend! Another subject
     A better subject

     A better body

Thanks

Phillip