Re: [PATCH v5 0/4] history: add squash subcommand to fold a range

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 26, 2026, 14:02 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqh5mpcsc0.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <4654a3f1-bf79-4c3f-b121-16bb3ab25f07@gmail.com>

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On 26/06/2026 10:57, Harald Nordgren wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 10:53 AM Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> wrote:>> >> Only accepting a single argument is quite limiting as one
>>> cannot say
>>>
>>>          git history squash ^:/base :/tip
>> 
>> I don't understand why this is limiting? It thought it was clear that
>> it should be one argument REF1..REF2 ? What does '^:/base :/tip'
>> achieve that '^:/base..:/tip' cannot?
>
> '^/:base..:/tip' is not a range - everything after the first '/:' is 
> treated as a regular expression to search for.

This particular case you can do

	HEAD^{/base}..HEAD^{/tip}

(or even go "HEAD^{/tip}~43" and fancier other forms, the point being with matching {} pair, you can do more than what the lazy short-hand form can).

But I think your point still stands, I think, as

	git history squash HEAD^{/base}..:/tip ^main

may be something you would want to do to express additional constraints, like "I want this range squashed, but I should never ever touch what is already in main".