Re: [PATCH] Documentation/git-rebase.txt: fix -f description to match actual git behavior.

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Sergey Organov [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

quoted

A sentence "--force has no effect under --preserve-merges mode" does
not tell the readers very much, either and leaves them wondering if
it means "--preserve-merges mode always rebases every time it is
asked, never noticing 'ah, the history is already in a good shape
and there is no need to do anything further'" or "--preserve-merges
mode ignores --force and refuses to recreate the history if the
history is in the shape the mode deems is already desirable."

In fact there is no way to force rebase when --preserve-merges is given.
Neither --force nor --no-ff has any effect.

Maybe some clarification could be given in --preserve-merges
description, provided it's not clear that "has no effect" for --force
means that one can't force the rebase in this case.

I am not sure if that is an intended behaviour or simply a bug (I
rarely use preserve-merges myself, so I offhand do not know for
certain).

It seems that there is some problem there anyway. Probably a slight
misfeature rather than a bug, as --preserve-merges always pretends it
does something, even when it does not:

$ git log --oneline --graph --decorate
*   6f25bd5 (HEAD, topic) M
|\  
| * c5a4a43 C
* | 3c6ab7a (master) N
* | 99ff328 B
|/  
* 130ae2d A
$ git rebase --preserve-merges master
Successfully rebased and updated refs/heads/topic.
$ git log --oneline --graph --decorate
*   6f25bd5 (HEAD, topic) M
|\  
| * c5a4a43 C
* | 3c6ab7a (master) N
* | 99ff328 B
|/  
* 130ae2d A
$

"git reflog topic" doesn't show any changes either.

-- 
Sergey.