Re: [PATCH] git-merge: add option --no-ff

Lars Hjemli [off-list ref] wrote:

This option forces fast-forward merges to create a "true" merge commit,
i.e. a commit with multiple parents.

Although a fast-forward merge would normally be the right thing to do with
git branches, it is suboptimal when operating on git-svn branches since it
makes 'git-svn dcommit' fail to recognize the correct upstream subversion
branch. But performing such a merge with --no-ff specified will both make
git-svn dcommit recognize the correct upstream and create the logically
correct history in subversion (the merge performed in git will be recorded
as a single revision in subversion, not as a series of revisions seemingly
cherry-picked from the merged branch).

Signed-off-by: Lars Hjemli <redacted>

Would automatically enabling --no-ff when it detects merging of two (or
more) SVN branches be a good thing?  We can add scripting support to
git-svn for detecting if any given commit is really from SVN or not.
Then we could do something like this in git-merge

---------------------------- 8< --------------------------------
if git-svn test-svn-commits "$@"
then
	no_ff=t
	no_fast_forward_strategies=$all_strategies
fi
---------------------------- 8< --------------------------------

It'd probably prevent a lot of users from shooting themselves in the
foot if they forget to read or learn about the --no-ff option.

---

When updating git-svn.txt, I noticed that we might want to update the 
section "DESIGN PHILOSOPHY". Eric?

Yeah.  That's very much out of date.  I'll update it in a bit.

-- 
Eric Wong