Re: git commit workflow question

<shameless plug>The Eclipse plugin (egit) actually already supports this
feature, and I use it all the time. It's incredibly handy, since I can
stag things as much as I want, and then commit then piecemeal.</shameless
plug>

However, I'm not convinced this should necessarily be included in git, at
least not by editing the commit message. Perhaps it should be a task for a
porcelain? I know you can do something similar using git-gui as
well, just by clicking on files in its top view to stage/unstage. Or like
rebase -i, where you first get a buffer with a list of stuff to be done,
and then in a separate buffer you get the commit message.

On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 01:31:37PM +0200, Wincent Colaiuta wrote:

 El 14/9/2007, a las 20:14, Shawn O. Pearce escribi?:

quoted

I'm not sure how the Git community would react to being able to edit
the list of files being committed from within the commit message
buffer.  I think most Git users run at least `git diff --cached`
before they commit to make sure they are happy with the difference.
I know a lot of users who do that.

 Yes, I generally check what's in the index before going ahead with a commit; in 
 fact I have the following alias in my .bash_profile so that I can just type 
 "staged" to see what'll be in the commit, along with an "unstaged" alias for 
 the opposite:

 alias staged='git diff --cached'

 Having said that, it would be very useful to be able to edit the list within 
 the commit message buffer for those occasions where you realise that stuff you 
 have staged in the index really should be two separate commits. It would enable 
 this very simple workflow:

   1. review changes, realize that some of the changes belong in a separate 
 commit
   2. commit, omitting the unwanted changes
   3. commit again, this time with the remainder of the changes

 Without the ability to edit the list within the commit message buffer your 
 workflow becomes a bit more cumbersome:

   1. review changes, realize that some of the changes belong in a separate 
 commit
   2a. explicitly pass files to commit on the commandline (cumbersome if number 
 of files is large); or:
   2b. use git-commit --interactive (again can be relatively cumbersome); or:
   2c. explicitly unstage unwanted files, commit, then restage them and commit

 So, yes, the proposed functionality isn't necessary by any means, but it would 
 make some nice usability sugar. I know that in the past my experience with 
 other SCMs that can do this has made me mistakenly believe that Git does too.

 Cheers,
 Wincent

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-- 
Dave Watson
Software Engineer
MIMvista Corp