# rebase --onto might "loose" commits 4 messages from 2008-02-19 to 2008-02-19. Participants: Björn Steinbrink, Johannes Schindelin, Nicolas Pitre. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/12191 ## Björn Steinbrink, 2008-02-19 07:23 Subject: rebase --onto might "loose" commits Message-ID: <20080219072359.GA752@atjola.homenet> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080219072359.GA752%40atjola.homenet ``` Hi, when there's nothing to rebase (ie. upstream..branch is empty), rebase fails to find any commits to rebase and correctly says "Nothing to do", but when --onto is given, we already did a "reset --hard" to newbase, so it already _did_ something. As rebase also shows a "fatal: Not a range", during the operation, I assume that this is an actual bug and not just a plain user error. A test script is attached. Thank, Björn ``` ## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-02-19 11:05 Subject: Re: rebase --onto might "loose" commits Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LSU.1.00.0802191102440.30505%40racer.site In-Reply-To: <20080219072359.GA752@atjola.homenet> ``` Hi, On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Björn Steinbrink wrote: > when there's nothing to rebase (ie. upstream..branch is empty), rebase > fails to find any commits to rebase and correctly says "Nothing to do", > but when --onto is given, we already did a "reset --hard" to newbase, so > it already _did_ something. Yes, it did something. But if you had that: A - B - C - D - E \ F your HEAD was E, and you said "git rebase --onto F E" what exactly do you want it to do? There is no commit between E and E, so it rebases _nothing_ onto F. Which means that F should be your new state. Unless I am missing something critical in your mail. > As rebase also shows a "fatal: Not a range", during the operation, I > assume that this is an actual bug and not just a plain user error. That message is probably a bug, then. Ciao, Dscho P.S.: I was being corrected some time ago on the same typo: "to lose" means to get rid of something unintentionally, "to loose" does not exist, and "to loosen" means to make something less tight. ``` ## Björn Steinbrink, 2008-02-19 12:52 Subject: Re: rebase --onto might "loose" commits Message-ID: <20080219125216.GA10444@atjola.homenet> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080219125216.GA10444%40atjola.homenet In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, On 2008.02.19 11:05:40 +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Björn Steinbrink wrote: > > > when there's nothing to rebase (ie. upstream..branch is empty), rebase > > fails to find any commits to rebase and correctly says "Nothing to do", > > but when --onto is given, we already did a "reset --hard" to newbase, so > > it already _did_ something. > > Yes, it did something. But if you had that: > > A - B - C - D - E > \ > F > > your HEAD was E, and you said "git rebase --onto F E" what exactly do you > want it to do? There is no commit between E and E, so it rebases > _nothing_ onto F. Which means that F should be your new state. Strictly, it's correct, but the "Nothing to do" message is a bit misleading (IMHO) and the error message made me think, that it actually didn't want to do anything. I'm a bit unsure about rebase being degraded to a "reset --hard" in this case is a good idea. Might be a nice user-protection to make rebase abort when there's nothing to rebase and --onto is given. But I don't care that much. Thanks, Björn > P.S.: I was being corrected some time ago on the same typo: "to lose" > means to get rid of something unintentionally, "to loose" does not exist, > and "to loosen" means to make something less tight. Ah yeah, one of my preferred typos. There's about a 50% chance for me to get that right. Although it already felt wrong when I read over the mail, for some unknown reason I couldn't put my finger on the typo. ;-) ``` ## Nicolas Pitre, 2008-02-19 14:43 Subject: Re: rebase --onto might "loose" commits Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.1.00.0802190939240.2732%40xanadu.home In-Reply-To: <20080219125216.GA10444@atjola.homenet> ``` On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Björn Steinbrink wrote: > Hi, > > On 2008.02.19 11:05:40 +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > > On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Björn Steinbrink wrote: > > > > > when there's nothing to rebase (ie. upstream..branch is empty), rebase > > > fails to find any commits to rebase and correctly says "Nothing to do", > > > but when --onto is given, we already did a "reset --hard" to newbase, so > > > it already _did_ something. > > > > Yes, it did something. But if you had that: > > > > A - B - C - D - E > > \ > > F > > > > your HEAD was E, and you said "git rebase --onto F E" what exactly do you > > want it to do? There is no commit between E and E, so it rebases > > _nothing_ onto F. Which means that F should be your new state. > > Strictly, it's correct, but the "Nothing to do" message is a bit > misleading (IMHO) and the error message made me think, that it actually > didn't want to do anything. Yes, the message should probably be changed in that case. > I'm a bit unsure about rebase being degraded to a "reset --hard" in this > case is a good idea. Might be a nice user-protection to make rebase > abort when there's nothing to rebase and --onto is given. But I don't > care that much. The "reset --hard" in that case is really the correct behavior. Rebase might be used like 'git pull --rebase', and if your local branch contains no commits of your own then the 'git reset --hard' is really what needs to happen. The "user protection" lives in the reflog. Nicolas ```