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-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-rebase.txt135
-rw-r--r--Documentation/technical/directory-rename-detection.txt115
2 files changed, 223 insertions, 27 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-rebase.txt b/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
index 091eb53faa..a7850415b1 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
@@ -243,11 +243,15 @@ leave out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
--keep-empty::
Keep the commits that do not change anything from its
parents in the result.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--allow-empty-message::
By default, rebasing commits with an empty message will fail.
This option overrides that behavior, allowing commits with empty
messages to be rebased.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--skip::
Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
@@ -271,6 +275,8 @@ branch on top of the <upstream> branch. Because of this, when a merge
conflict happens, the side reported as 'ours' is the so-far rebased
series, starting with <upstream>, and 'theirs' is the working branch. In
other words, the sides are swapped.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-s <strategy>::
--strategy=<strategy>::
@@ -280,8 +286,10 @@ other words, the sides are swapped.
+
Because 'git rebase' replays each commit from the working branch
on top of the <upstream> branch using the given strategy, using
-the 'ours' strategy simply discards all patches from the <branch>,
+the 'ours' strategy simply empties all patches from the <branch>,
which makes little sense.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-X <strategy-option>::
--strategy-option=<strategy-option>::
@@ -289,6 +297,8 @@ which makes little sense.
This implies `--merge` and, if no strategy has been
specified, `-s recursive`. Note the reversal of 'ours' and
'theirs' as noted above for the `-m` option.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-S[<keyid>]::
--gpg-sign[=<keyid>]::
@@ -324,17 +334,21 @@ which makes little sense.
and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding
context exist they all must match. By default no context is
ever ignored.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--f::
+--no-ff::
--force-rebase::
- Force a rebase even if the current branch is up to date and
- the command without `--force` would return without doing anything.
+-f::
+ Individually replay all rebased commits instead of fast-forwarding
+ over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the entire history of
+ the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
+
-You may find this (or --no-ff with an interactive rebase) helpful after
-reverting a topic branch merge, as this option recreates the topic branch with
-fresh commits so it can be remerged successfully without needing to "revert
-the reversion" (see the
-link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for details).
+You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option
+recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged
+successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the
+link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for
+details).
--fork-point::
--no-fork-point::
@@ -355,19 +369,22 @@ default is `--no-fork-point`, otherwise the default is `--fork-point`.
--whitespace=<option>::
These flag are passed to the 'git apply' program
(see linkgit:git-apply[1]) that applies the patch.
- Incompatible with the --interactive option.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--committer-date-is-author-date::
--ignore-date::
These flags are passed to 'git am' to easily change the dates
of the rebased commits (see linkgit:git-am[1]).
- Incompatible with the --interactive option.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--signoff::
Add a Signed-off-by: trailer to all the rebased commits. Note
that if `--interactive` is given then only commits marked to be
- picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added. Incompatible
- with the `--preserve-merges` option.
+ picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-i::
--interactive::
@@ -378,6 +395,8 @@ default is `--no-fork-point`, otherwise the default is `--fork-point`.
The commit list format can be changed by setting the configuration option
rebase.instructionFormat. A customized instruction format will automatically
have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-r::
--rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]::
@@ -404,7 +423,7 @@ It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
`recursive` merge strategy; Different merge strategies can be used only via
explicit `exec git merge -s <strategy> [...]` commands.
+
-See also REBASING MERGES below.
+See also REBASING MERGES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-p::
--preserve-merges::
@@ -415,6 +434,8 @@ See also REBASING MERGES below.
This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but combining it
with the `--interactive` option explicitly is generally not a good
idea unless you know what you are doing (see BUGS below).
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-x <cmd>::
--exec <cmd>::
@@ -437,6 +458,8 @@ squash/fixup series.
+
This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but it can be run
without an explicit `--interactive`.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--root::
Rebase all commits reachable from <branch>, instead of
@@ -447,6 +470,8 @@ without an explicit `--interactive`.
When used together with both --onto and --preserve-merges,
'all' root commits will be rewritten to have <newbase> as parent
instead.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--autosquash::
--no-autosquash::
@@ -461,11 +486,11 @@ without an explicit `--interactive`.
too. The recommended way to create fixup/squash commits is by using
the `--fixup`/`--squash` options of linkgit:git-commit[1].
+
-This option is only valid when the `--interactive` option is used.
-+
If the `--autosquash` option is enabled by default using the
configuration variable `rebase.autoSquash`, this option can be
used to override and disable this setting.
++
+See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--autostash::
--no-autostash::
@@ -475,17 +500,73 @@ used to override and disable this setting.
with care: the final stash application after a successful
rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.
---no-ff::
- With --interactive, cherry-pick all rebased commits instead of
- fast-forwarding over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the
- entire history of the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
-+
-Without --interactive, this is a synonym for --force-rebase.
-+
-You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option
-recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged
-successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the
-link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for details).
+INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS
+--------------------
+
+git-rebase has many flags that are incompatible with each other,
+predominantly due to the fact that it has three different underlying
+implementations:
+
+ * one based on linkgit:git-am[1] (the default)
+ * one based on git-merge-recursive (merge backend)
+ * one based on linkgit:git-cherry-pick[1] (interactive backend)
+
+Flags only understood by the am backend:
+
+ * --committer-date-is-author-date
+ * --ignore-date
+ * --whitespace
+ * --ignore-whitespace
+ * -C
+
+Flags understood by both merge and interactive backends:
+
+ * --merge
+ * --strategy
+ * --strategy-option
+ * --allow-empty-message
+
+Flags only understood by the interactive backend:
+
+ * --[no-]autosquash
+ * --rebase-merges
+ * --preserve-merges
+ * --interactive
+ * --exec
+ * --keep-empty
+ * --autosquash
+ * --edit-todo
+ * --root when used in combination with --onto
+
+Other incompatible flag pairs:
+
+ * --preserve-merges and --interactive
+ * --preserve-merges and --signoff
+ * --preserve-merges and --rebase-merges
+ * --rebase-merges and --strategy
+ * --rebase-merges and --strategy-option
+
+BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES
+-----------------------
+
+ * empty commits:
+
+ am-based rebase will drop any "empty" commits, whether the
+ commit started empty (had no changes relative to its parent to
+ start with) or ended empty (all changes were already applied
+ upstream in other commits).
+
+ merge-based rebase does the same.
+
+ interactive-based rebase will by default drop commits that
+ started empty and halt if it hits a commit that ended up empty.
+ The `--keep-empty` option exists for interactive rebases to allow
+ it to keep commits that started empty.
+
+ * directory rename detection:
+
+ merge-based and interactive-based rebases work fine with
+ directory rename detection. am-based rebases sometimes do not.
include::merge-strategies.txt[]
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/directory-rename-detection.txt b/Documentation/technical/directory-rename-detection.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1c0086e287
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/technical/directory-rename-detection.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+Directory rename detection
+==========================
+
+Rename detection logic in diffcore-rename that checks for renames of
+individual files is aggregated and analyzed in merge-recursive for cases
+where combinations of renames indicate that a full directory has been
+renamed.
+
+Scope of abilities
+------------------
+
+It is perhaps easiest to start with an example:
+
+ * When all of x/a, x/b and x/c have moved to z/a, z/b and z/c, it is
+ likely that x/d added in the meantime would also want to move to z/d by
+ taking the hint that the entire directory 'x' moved to 'z'.
+
+More interesting possibilities exist, though, such as:
+
+ * one side of history renames x -> z, and the other renames some file to
+ x/e, causing the need for the merge to do a transitive rename.
+
+ * one side of history renames x -> z, but also renames all files within
+ x. For example, x/a -> z/alpha, x/b -> z/bravo, etc.
+
+ * both 'x' and 'y' being merged into a single directory 'z', with a
+ directory rename being detected for both x->z and y->z.
+
+ * not all files in a directory being renamed to the same location;
+ i.e. perhaps most the files in 'x' are now found under 'z', but a few
+ are found under 'w'.
+
+ * a directory being renamed, which also contained a subdirectory that was
+ renamed to some entirely different location. (And perhaps the inner
+ directory itself contained inner directories that were renamed to yet
+ other locations).
+
+ * combinations of the above; see t/t6043-merge-rename-directories.sh for
+ various interesting cases.
+
+Limitations -- applicability of directory renames
+-------------------------------------------------
+
+In order to prevent edge and corner cases resulting in either conflicts
+that cannot be represented in the index or which might be too complex for
+users to try to understand and resolve, a couple basic rules limit when
+directory rename detection applies:
+
+ 1) If a given directory still exists on both sides of a merge, we do
+ not consider it to have been renamed.
+
+ 2) If a subset of to-be-renamed files have a file or directory in the
+ way (or would be in the way of each other), "turn off" the directory
+ rename for those specific sub-paths and report the conflict to the
+ user.
+
+ 3) If the other side of history did a directory rename to a path that
+ your side of history renamed away, then ignore that particular
+ rename from the other side of history for any implicit directory
+ renames (but warn the user).
+
+Limitations -- detailed rules and testcases
+-------------------------------------------
+
+t/t6043-merge-rename-directories.sh contains extensive tests and commentary
+which generate and explore the rules listed above. It also lists a few
+additional rules:
+
+ a) If renames split a directory into two or more others, the directory
+ with the most renames, "wins".
+
+ b) Avoid directory-rename-detection for a path, if that path is the
+ source of a rename on either side of a merge.
+
+ c) Only apply implicit directory renames to directories if the other side
+ of history is the one doing the renaming.
+
+Limitations -- support in different commands
+--------------------------------------------
+
+Directory rename detection is supported by 'merge' and 'cherry-pick'.
+Other git commands which users might be surprised to see limited or no
+directory rename detection support in:
+
+ * diff
+
+ Folks have requested in the past that `git diff` detect directory
+ renames and somehow simplify its output. It is not clear whether this
+ would be desirable or how the output should be simplified, so this was
+ simply not implemented. Further, to implement this, directory rename
+ detection logic would need to move from merge-recursive to
+ diffcore-rename.
+
+ * am
+
+ git-am tries to avoid a full three way merge, instead calling
+ git-apply. That prevents us from detecting renames at all, which may
+ defeat the directory rename detection. There is a fallback, though; if
+ the initial git-apply fails and the user has specified the -3 option,
+ git-am will fall back to a three way merge. However, git-am lacks the
+ necessary information to do a "real" three way merge. Instead, it has
+ to use build_fake_ancestor() to get a merge base that is missing files
+ whose rename may have been important to detect for directory rename
+ detection to function.
+
+ * rebase
+
+ Since am-based rebases work by first generating a bunch of patches
+ (which no longer record what the original commits were and thus don't
+ have the necessary info from which we can find a real merge-base), and
+ then calling git-am, this implies that am-based rebases will not always
+ successfully detect directory renames either (see the 'am' section
+ above). merged-based rebases (rebase -m) and cherry-pick-based rebases
+ (rebase -i) are not affected by this shortcoming, and fully support
+ directory rename detection.