Re: [PATCH] transplant: move a series of commits to a different parent

Steffen Prohaska, Sat, Jun 23, 2007 21:27:57 +0200:

+for commit in $(git-rev-list --reverse $from..$to)
+do
+    echo "rewriting commit $commit..."
+    git-diff-tree -r $commit | grep ^: | cut -b 9-15,57-97,100- |
+    while read mode sha path 
+    do
+        echo " $mode $sha $path"
+        git-update-index --add --cacheinfo $mode $sha $path
+    done

Why not just read-tree for every commit? It is not like you're
modifying the repository in any way, just changing parenthood. That'd
solve the problem with deletions.
So it should be enough to read-tree the repo state for each and every
source commit into the index (and you can just use a temporary index
file for that, see GIT_INDEX_FILE). Than just commit the index.