threads / discuss / 26657

why is merging with unstaged changes allowed when rebasing is not?

Subject: why is merging with unstaged changes allowed when rebasing is not?

## tl;dr

3 messages between Mar 4, 2011 and Mar 7, 2011.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Christian Halstrick· Mar 4, 2011, 16:32 UTC · lore

Isn't it inconsistent that I can merge with unstaged changes in my work-tree but not rebase? I agree that both should fail if the operation would have to touch the file which has unstaged changes. But if not - why don't we allow the rebase? (Is it just because we technically do a "git reset --hard" during the rebase which fails on unstaged changes?). Here is how tried it out:

git init touch a b git add a b git commit -m initial echo "a-master" >> a git commit -a -m "modified a on master" git checkout -b side HEAD~1 touch c git add c git commit -m "added c on side" echo "b-side" >> b # git rebase master -> would fail complaining about unstaged changes # git merge master -> would not fail

Even a 'git checkout master; git cherry-pick side' works well (but updates the wrong branch)

Ciao
  Chris

Junio C Hamano· Mar 4, 2011, 17:53 UTC · re: Christian Halstrick · lore

Re: why is merging with unstaged changes allowed when rebasing is not?

Christian Halstrick <christian.halstrick@gmail.com> writes:

> Isn't it inconsistent that I can merge with unstaged changes in my
> work-tree but not rebase?

Because people who wrote rebase didn't bother; it is too cumbersome to check all the possibly affected paths beforehand while replaying multiple changes.

Patches welcome ;-).

Neal Kreitzinger· Mar 7, 2011, 02:38 UTC · re: Christian Halstrick · lore

Re: why is merging with unstaged changes allowed when rebasing is not?

On 3/4/2011 10:32 AM, Christian Halstrick wrote:

Show 26 quoted lines

> Isn't it inconsistent that I can merge with unstaged changes in my
> work-tree but not rebase? I agree that both should fail if the
> operation would have to touch the file which has unstaged changes. But
> if not - why don't we allow the rebase? (Is it just because we
> technically do a "git reset --hard" during the rebase which fails on
> unstaged changes?). Here is how tried it out:
>
> git init
> touch a b
> git add a b
> git commit -m initial
> echo "a-master">>  a
> git commit -a -m "modified a on master"
> git checkout -b side HEAD~1
> touch c
> git add c
> git commit -m "added c on side"
> echo "b-side">>  b
> # git rebase master ->  would fail complaining about unstaged changes
> # git merge master ->   would not fail
>
> Even a 'git checkout master; git cherry-pick side' works well (but
> updates the wrong branch)
>
> Ciao
>    Chris

food for thought:

git-merge manpage: "Warning: Running git merge with uncommitted changes is discouraged: while possible, it leaves you in a state that is hard to back out of in the case of a conflict."

I would imagine that if its a bad idea for git-merge, its a really bad idea for git-rebase...

v/r, neal