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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-fast-import.txt | 11 |
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt index 96f6767075..c29a4f8126 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt @@ -385,6 +385,9 @@ new commit. Omitting the `from` command in the first commit of a new branch will cause fast-import to create that commit with no ancestor. This tends to be desired only for the initial commit of a project. +If the frontend creates all files from scratch when making a new +branch, a `merge` command may be used instead of `from` to start +the commit with an empty tree. Omitting the `from` command on existing branches is usually desired, as the current commit on that branch is automatically assumed to be the first ancestor of the new commit. @@ -427,13 +430,15 @@ existing value of the branch. `merge` ^^^^^^^ -Includes one additional ancestor commit, and makes the current -commit a merge commit. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per +Includes one additional ancestor commit. If the `from` command is +omitted when creating a new branch, the first `merge` commit will be +the first ancestor of the current commit, and the branch will start +out with no files. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per commit are permitted by fast-import, thereby establishing an n-way merge. However Git's other tools never create commits with more than 15 additional ancestors (forming a 16-way merge). For this reason it is suggested that frontends do not use more than 15 `merge` -commands per commit. +commands per commit; 16, if starting a new, empty branch. Here `<committish>` is any of the commit specification expressions also accepted by `from` (see above). |