Re: Using "-" for "previous branch" failing with rebase

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 18, 2014, 18:59 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqr45z8h9d.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20140317204744.6ac795a0@bigbox.christie.dr>

Tim Chase <git@tim.thechases.com> writes:

Show 22 quoted lines

> On 2014-03-16 23:37, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Tim Chase <git@tim.thechases.com> writes:
>> 
>> > Is this just an interface inconsistency or is there a some
>> > technical reason this doesn't work (or, has it been
>> > addressed/fixed, and just not pulled into Debian Stable's
>> > 1.7.10.4 version of git)?
>> 
>> It is merely that nobody thought "rebase" would benefit from such a
>> short-hand, I think.
>> 
>>     Teach more commands that operate on branch names about "-"
>>     shorthand for "the branch we were previously on", like we did
>>     for "git merge -" sometime after we introduced "git checkout -"
>> 
>> has been sitting in my "leftover bits" list at
>> 
>>     http://git-blame.blogspot.com/p/leftover-bits.html
>> 
>> for quite some time.  Hint, hint...
>
> Not sure if the "Hint, hint" was intended for me,...

No. It is primarily a search-engine bait ;-) and is secondarily a hint to any aspiring Git hackers on the list.

In general, I am not very enthused to see the single letter "-" used where you name any commit object (like "diff"). It is a short-hand for the @{-1} notation that names the branch name, and it is OK in general to add support for it to the places where we expect a branch name and not just any commit object name (e.g. "checkout -"), but maybe it is just me who was heavily involved in the original design.