Re: The --no-commit blues

On 6/18/07, Brian L. Troutwine [off-list ref] wrote:

I've got two branches, one which I commit to quite frequently and another only
periodically, call them inward and outward. Inward is where I do my work,
outward tracks an SVN repository. I'd like to merge inward to outward without
committing the merge so that I may provide a commit message appropriate for
checking in to the SVN repo.

`git merge --no-commit inward' from branch outward, I thought, should do it.
Performing a `git status' and a `git log' directly afterward seem to indicate
that the merge was committed. `git commit' insists the branch is now up to
date.

Either it was a fast-forward (IOW, the outward had no changes since you
changed inward, and inward is derived from outward), or we have a bug
(which I cannot reproduce).

Am I going about this the wrong way? What does --no-commit mean, if I am?

exactly what it say: do not commit. Fast-forwards do not commit, just update
your HEAD, index and working directory with the new changed (from inward
in your case).