Re: [PATCH v2] Revamp git-cherry(1)

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 22, 2013, 19:25 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqa9gw1bne.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <dde93c10b7f6cb7b8cf94e9a0310c8e05aca2517.1385137650.git.tr@thomasrast.ch>

Thomas Rast <tr@thomasrast.ch> writes:

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>  NAME
>  ----
> +git-cherry - Find commits not applied in upstream
>  
> +Determine whether there are commits in `<head>..<upstream>` that are
> +equivalent to those in the range `<limit>..<head>`.
>  
> +The equivalence test is based on the diff, after removing whitespace
> +and line numbers.  git-cherry therefore detects when commits have been
> +"copied" by means of linkgit:git-cherry-pick[1], linkgit:git-am[1] or
> +linkgit:git-rebase[1].
>  
> +Outputs the SHA1 of every commit in `<limit>..<head>`, prefixed with
> +`-` for commits that have an equivalent in <upstream>, and `+` for
> +commits that do not.

Thanks, this reads really much better than tha original.

We are listing those that need to be added to the upstream with "+", while listing those that can be dropped from yours if you rebase with "-". Hinting the rationale behind the choice of "+/-" somewhere may help as a mnemonic to the readers (see below).

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> +EXAMPLES
> +--------
> +
> +Patch workflows
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> +
> +git-cherry is frequently used in patch-based workflows (see
> +linkgit:gitworkflows[7]) to determine if a series of patches has been
> +applied by the upstream maintainer.  In such a workflow you might
> +create and send a topic branch like this:
> +
> +------------
> +$ git checkout -b topic origin/master
> +# work and create some commits
> +$ git format-patch origin/master
> +$ git send-email ... 00*
> +------------
> +Later, you can see whether your changes have been applied by saying
> +(still on `topic`):

Perhaps we want a blank line before "Later, ..." to be consistent with all the other displayed examples here (I'll squash it locally before queuing), even though AsciiDoc seems to format this just fine.

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> +
> +------------
> +$ git fetch  # update your notion of origin/master
> +$ git cherry -v
> +------------
> +
> +Concrete example
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"A concrete example", perhaps?  I dunno.

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> +In a situation where topic consisted of three commits, and the
> +maintainer applied two of them, the situation might look like:
> +
> +------------
> +$ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic
> +* 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit
> +[... snip some other commits ...]
> +* cccc111 cherry-pick of C
> +* aaaa111 cherry-pick of A
> +[... snip a lot more that has happened ...]
> +| * cccc000 (topic) commit C
> +| * bbbb000 commit B
> +| * aaaa000 commit A
> +|/
> +o 1234567 branch point
> +------------
> +
> +In such cases, git-cherry shows a concise summary of what has been
> +applied:

It shows a concise summary of "what has yet to be applied" (to be consistent with the one-line description in the NAME section).

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> +------------
> +$ git cherry origin/master topic
> +- cccc000... commit C
> ++ bbbb000... commit B
> +- aaaa000... commit A
> +------------

And the earlier "why +/-" could be done after this picture, perhaps like:

	Here, we see that the commits A and C (marked with `-`) can
	be dropped from your `topic` branch when you rebase it on
	top of `origin/master`, while the commit B (marked with `+`)
	still needs to be kept so that it will be sent to be applied
	to `origin/master`.

or somesuch?