Re: Editing the root commit

Chris Webb [off-list ref] writes:

Chris Webb [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Even though I wouldn't bother doing this myself, I wouldn't mind
reviewing a patch series ;-)

Okay, I'll take a look when I finish my current project!

I had a bit of spare time this morning and had a quick look through
git-rebase--interactive.sh.

Apart from the validation, message and reflog code in git-rebase.sh and
git-rebase--interactive.sh that would need fixing up to know about this
case, the essence of this seems to be starting with an orphan commit instead
of a commit descended from $onto right at the end of --interactive.

I'd love to write something like

  git checkout ${onto:---orphan}

(or a variant) but can git be persuaded to have an orphan detached HEAD like
that?

For the root commit in the history, you check it out on the detached
HEAD.  Under "--interactive" if the insn sheet tells you to allow
the user to "edit/amend/reword" it, give control back the user after
you have detached HEAD at that commit.  The user experience should
be identical to the case you are replaying on an existing commit
after that point.

But lets step back a bit and look at the whole picture, to make sure
we are on the same page.

    $ git rebase [-i] frotz

looks at where you are, finds where you forked from 'frotz', and
replays everything you have done since you forked onto the tip of
'frotz'.

    $ git rebase [-i] --onto nitfol frotz

replays the same history onto the tip of 'nitfol' instead.

    $ git rebase [-i] --root --onto nitfol

looks at the entire history leading to where you are, and replays
everything you have done onto the tip of 'nitfol'.

What if we do not say --onto here?  I am not asking what the current
implementation does (we get an error message saying "I want 'onto'
specified").  What _should_ this command mean to a naïve user?

    $ git rebase [-i] --root

I think it should mean "replay all my history down to root".  The
original root commit should become the new root commit in the
rewritten history.