Re: [PATCH 1/5] add 'prior' link in commit structure

Sam Vilain [off-list ref] writes:

For now this is just recorded as a char* pointer, as it is not an
error condition for the commit not to be present locally.

Object ancestry is parsed lazily, so you should not have to do this.
Just point at another commit if you are to have only one (I
recommend against it) or have another commit_list, but when you
instantiate you may want to have a flag in the commit object
itself that says "this need not exist".