threads / discuss / 7852

suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

Subject: suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

## tl;dr

5 messages between Apr 26, 2007 and May 3, 2007.

replies: 4people: 3as markdown or json

Mike Coleman· Apr 26, 2007, 05:48 UTC · lore

Here's an idea for a git feature. (Or perhaps this is already possible and I just don't see it.)

It would be nice to be able to completely expunge a file or delta from a private part of an archive ("private" meaning not yet published to others).

Here's my use case. I have some unit tests for my program, and I added some input and output for the tests to my git archive. Now I'm having second thoughts, as these files can be quite large, and I'm realizing what this implies with respect to git. Even the smallish test cases I checked in are 5-10MB, which is way larger than the codebase, and I'm not sure it makes sense to drag all of this around in the git archive. (Maybe it would be appropriate to put them in a parallel archive?)

Anyway, I realized that hacking the archive this way isn't very elegant, but maybe others would find it useful. It seems like the basic technique of git-rebase could be applied here.

Even if the archive is already public, I suppose it might occasionally be useful to be able to (say) split the archive by subtrees, and simply have everyone cut over.

Mike

Junio C Hamano· Apr 26, 2007, 05:57 UTC · re: Mike Coleman · lore

Re: suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

"Mike Coleman" <tutufan@gmail.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Here's an idea for a git feature.  (Or perhaps this is already
> possible and I just don't see it.)
> ...
> Anyway, I realized that hacking the archive this way isn't very
> elegant, but maybe others would find it useful.  It seems like the
> basic technique of git-rebase could be applied here.

There have been talks about polishing cg-rewritehist into a shape suitable for inclusion in core git.git, now Cogito is not actively developed anymore.

I think the first thing to fix is its name "rewritehist", which may technically be correct, feels a bit too ugly ;-)

Mike Coleman· Apr 26, 2007, 14:50 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

On 4/26/07, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:

> There have been talks about polishing cg-rewritehist into a
> shape suitable for inclusion in core git.git, now Cogito is not
> actively developed anymore.

Ah, that looks like it'd fit the bill. I may see if it'll still work for my simple case. Thanks for the pointer.

> I think the first thing to fix is its name "rewritehist", which
> may technically be correct, feels a bit too ugly ;-)

Naming is very important. I seem to recall hearing (from PE) that one of the early Unix guys was later asked if there was anything they'd change in hindsight. Their response: they'd spell "creat" with an 'e'.

Johannes Schindelin· Apr 26, 2007, 15:17 UTC · re: Mike Coleman · lore

Re: suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

Hi,

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Mike Coleman wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On 4/26/07, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:
> > There have been talks about polishing cg-rewritehist into a
> > shape suitable for inclusion in core git.git, now Cogito is not
> > actively developed anymore.
> 
> Ah, that looks like it'd fit the bill.  I may see if it'll still work
> for my simple case.  Thanks for the pointer.
> 
> > I think the first thing to fix is its name "rewritehist", which
> > may technically be correct, feels a bit too ugly ;-)
> 
> Naming is very important.

Maybe git-rewrite-commits?

> I seem to recall hearing (from PE) that one of the early Unix guys was 
> later asked if there was anything they'd change in hindsight.  Their 
> response: they'd spell "creat" with an 'e'.

In related news: there is really no question that bike sheds should be painted red. Really.

Ciao, Dscho

Mike Coleman· May 3, 2007, 16:24 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: suggested feature: completely expunge a file (or just a delta) a la rebase

I have no idea why bike sheds should be painted red (though this does sound very vaguely familiar). I did get a chance to try out cg-admin-rewritehist last night, and it worked like a charm. Even got rid of my graft point (my project has previously lived in RCS, CVS, and Subversion).

Anyway, it'd definitely be useful, I think, especially as a means to unroll newby mistakes such as mine.

Mike

On 4/26/07, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Show 30 quoted lines

> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Mike Coleman wrote:
>
> > On 4/26/07, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:
> > > There have been talks about polishing cg-rewritehist into a
> > > shape suitable for inclusion in core git.git, now Cogito is not
> > > actively developed anymore.
> >
> > Ah, that looks like it'd fit the bill.  I may see if it'll still work
> > for my simple case.  Thanks for the pointer.
> >
> > > I think the first thing to fix is its name "rewritehist", which
> > > may technically be correct, feels a bit too ugly ;-)
> >
> > Naming is very important.
>
> Maybe git-rewrite-commits?
>
> > I seem to recall hearing (from PE) that one of the early Unix guys was
> > later asked if there was anything they'd change in hindsight.  Their
> > response: they'd spell "creat" with an 'e'.
>
> In related news: there is really no question that bike sheds should be
> painted red. Really.
>
> Ciao,
> Dscho
>
>