Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] Add git-sequencer prototype documentation

(I've hijacked this thread and started talking mostly about StGit
instead of git-sequencer; if you're not interested, you can stop
reading now.)

On 2008-07-08 12:37:50 +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:

1. Splitting a patch

I cannot comment well on git-sequencer, as I have started using
StGIT patch management interface instead of git-rebase in times when
there were no "git rebase --interactive". Nevertheless working with
StGIT is a bit similar to working with interactive rebase...

I don't find myself wanting to join two patches into one (to squadh
a commit) perhaps because when I want to add something to a commit
(to a patch) I simply go to this patch, edit files, and refresh the
patch.

You can do this without having to manually go to the right patch with
the -p <patchname> flag to stg refresh. In my experimental branch,
this even works together with path limited refresh, or refresh of just
the index.

My own workflow is different: I generally make a large number of
rather small "work-in-progress" commits without much of a commit
message, and every now and then (while I still have everything in
short-term memory) I use "stg coalesce" to make one or more "real"
patches out of them. Because I've committed such small pieces in the
first place, I rarely need to split a patch.

From time to time however I find myself SPLITTING a patch, for
example extracting something added "by the way"/"while at it" into
separate commit (like late separate better documenting project_index
file format from adding optional description field to project_index
file format).

The best way I've found of splitting a patch in StGit is to open the
diff in an Emacs buffer, then pop the patch, and then use Emacs' cool
diff-mode features to apply hunks selectively, split hunks, edit files
in place, etc., and committing at the points where I want patch
boundaries. Occasionally, I'll push and pop the patch to get a new
diff with only the remaining stuff.

I imagine something like this could work without StGit as well, since
it's mostly Emacs doing all the hard work. (And I suppose there are
other tools besides Emacs that can do this?)

-- 
Karl Hasselström, kha@treskal.com
      www.treskal.com/kalle