RE: [PATCH 1/2] revision: Denote root commits with '#'

From: Junio C Hamano
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2021 6:45 PM

"Jason Pyeron" writes:

quoted

One and the same issue. Placing an * directly above another * is the issue.

OK, I re-read the messages in the thread, and it appears that this
part from Kyle

Added more of the context below.

quoted

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  While root commits are not a special case in the sense that --graph 
  makes ancestor implications for more than just root commits, root 
  commits are a special case when we think about interpreting the presence 
  of hidden lineage in --graph output.
  
  Considering one of your examples:

            C
           /
          O---A---B
                   \
            X---Y---Z

  When graphing C..Z, git produces output like:

  *   0fbb0dc (HEAD -> z) Z
  |\
  | * 11be529 (master) B
  | * 8dd1b85 A
  * 851a915 Y
  * 27d3ed0 (x) X

  We cannot tell from the above graph alone that X is a root and A is not.

This was a side track down the left right issue. I personally feel that using the left right features is a buyer beware situation.

was the only thing that argued that A and X (if the graph drawing
happend to place an unrelated commit immediately below it) should be
drawn differently so that you can tell X (root) and A (non root)
apart.

And you are saying (and it seems that you have consistently been
saying) that it is OK to draw A and X (again if other unrelated

I am neither saying or not saying that - partial graph issues are outside of my concerns. Kyle was attempting to reconcile comments on this list about partial graph rendering when his patch was submitted.

commits were immediately drawn below them) the same way.  So I guess
all is well.  We do not have to use more 6 different symbols ("{#}"
to show commit above boundary, three more to show roots) but need to
introduce only three, if we were to go with the Solution #1 route.

Honestly, I do not care about the <>{}. Whatever makes sense.

It seems to me that Solution #2 is a special case of Solution #3 ;-)
They are both direct answers to the "graph drawn incorrectly can
imply ancestry that does not exist" problem.

Adding the "--decorate-roots" option that annotates the root commits
in the "git log" output can still be done, but that is an orthogonal
issue.  It does solve, together with any one of three options you
presented, the issue Kyle brought up, I would think.

Yes, adding --decorate-roots to add more wide descriptive text before the message would do it, but it is the worst solution #4.

Thanks.