I observed a puzzling behavior of git-rev-list:
$ git-rev-list master^^..master
f3364ca9405e17772fecea1d06c40b9965b8e6e4
bb3bfda219a85d2d49e62c261b9c8f6795ebdc22
$ git-rev-list --max-count=2 master
f3364ca9405e17772fecea1d06c40b9965b8e6e4
bb3bfda219a85d2d49e62c261b9c8f6795ebdc22
$ git-rev-list --objects master^^..master |wc -l
10
$ git-rev-list --objects --max-count=2 master |wc -l
2376
As you can see, without --objects, master^^..master and --max-count=2
list the same two commits.
But with --objects I get different object lists. I don't even know which
one is the one to expect, but I certainly would not have expected the
lists to be different. What's wrong here?
BTW, the objects listed with --objects --max-count=2 are basically the
entire tree at master plus the few objects that changed since master^^.
$ git --version
git version 1.4.4.rc2.gc8641
-- Hannes
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006, Johannes Sixt wrote:
As you can see, without --objects, master^^..master and --max-count=2
list the same two commits.
"--max-count=X" and "master^^..master" are two TOTALLY different things.
The fact that they happened to give the same results without "--objects"
is a random thing, and not at all guaranteed. For example, if "master" (or
its parent) had been a merge, it probably wouldn't have given the same
result even _without_ "--objects".
But with --objects I get different object lists. I don't even know which
one is the one to expect, but I certainly would not have expected the
lists to be different. What's wrong here?
Nothing is wrong. You're asking for two totally different things.
With "--max-count=2", you're saying "I want the first two commits", and
then the "--objects" part extends that to all the other object types too.
So you get two commits _and_ every single object reachable from those two
commits.
In contrast, with "master^^..master", you're saying "I want everything
that is reachable from "master", but _not_ reachable from it's
grand-parent. And the "--objects" flag extends that to all the other
object types too.
So you get (in this case) two commits _and_ all the objects that are
reachable from those two commits but that are _not_ reachable from the
grandparent.
That's a totally different thing, obviously. There's likely to be a lot of
objects in common between "master" and its grandparent, and you literally
asked to not be shown those objects. In the first case, you didn't ask for
the exclusion of the grandparent.
So you should expect a big difference in almost all cases. In one case,
you ask for an exclusion, in the other case, you just say "just the first
two commits, please". Not at all equivalent.