Re: Newbie contribution idea for 'git log --children': input requested

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 12, 2022, 00:41 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqillth1am.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <Yx5qjPhZ5AHkPHr7@MacBook-Pro-3.local>

Jacob Stopak <jacob@initialcommit.io> writes:

> I'm not sure if this really qualifies as a "bug" per se, or if
> there is some way to do this that I'm just missing, or if it goes
> against the way Git's rev lists work.

As it goes against the way GIt's rev lists work, you can call that "working in the way it was designed", or a "design bug".

> But I'm wondering if it could be addressed by simply adding a
> discrete check to see if any commits point to HEAD as a parent,
> (only when the --children option is used of course), and if so,
> populate those ids into the log message.

In a history where all commits and their parent-child relationship can be enumerated and the links can be reversed in-core, it would be trivial to implement. The challenge is to make sure it works without wasting unusably large resources to do so in a real world project. Having a commit-graph might help.

Thanks.