Re: [PATCH] rebase -i: introduce the 'test' command

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi Luc,

On Mon, 3 Dec 2018, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 01, 2018 at 03:02:09PM -0500, Jeff King wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 09:32:48AM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > 
> > > > > Would it not make more sense to add a command-line option (and a config
> > > > > setting) to re-schedule failed `exec` commands? Like so:
> > > > 
> > > > Your proposition would do in most cases, however it is not possible to
> > > > make a distinction between reschedulable and non-reschedulable commands.
> > > 
> > > True. But I don't think that's so terrible.
> > > 
> > > What I think is something to avoid is two commands that do something very,
> > > very similar, but with two very, very different names.
> > > 
> > > In reality, I think that it would even make sense to change the default to
> > > reschedule failed `exec` commands. Which is why I suggested to also add a
> > > config option.
> > 
> > I sometimes add "x false" to the top of the todo list to stop and create
> > new commits before the first one. That would be awkward if I could never
> > get past that line. However, I think elsewhere a "pause" line has been
> > discussed, which would serve the same purpose.
> > 
> > I wonder how often this kind of "yes, I know it fails, but keep going
> > anyway" situation would come up. And what the interface is like for
> > getting past it. E.g., what if you fixed a bunch of stuff but your tests
> > still fail? You may not want to abandon the changes you've made, but you
> > need to "rebase --continue" to move forward. I encounter this often when
> > the correct fix is actually in an earlier commit than the one that
> > yields the test failure. You can't rewind an interactive rebase, so I
> > complete and restart it, adding an "e"dit at the earlier commit.
> 
> In this sort of situation, I often whish to be able to do nested rebases.
> Even more because it happen relatively often that I forget that I'm
> working in a rebase and not on the head, and then it's quite natural
> to me to type things like 'git rebase -i @^^^' while already rebasing.
> But I suppose this has already been discussed.

Varieties of this have been discussed, but no, not nested rebases.

The closest we thought about was re-scheduling the latest <n> commits,
which is now harder because of the `--rebase-merges` mode.

But I think it would be doable. Your idea of a "nested" rebase actually
opens that door quite nicely. It would not *really* be a nested rebase,
and it would still only be possible in interactive mode, but I could
totally see

	git rebase --nested -i HEAD~3

to generate and prepend the following lines to the `git-rebase-todo` file:

	reset abcdef01 # This is HEAD~3
	pick abcdef02 # This is HEAD~2
	pick abcdef03 # This is HEAD~
	pick abcdef04 # This is HEAD

(assuming that the latest 3 commits were non-merge commits; It would look
quite a bit more complicated in other situations.)

Ciao,
Dscho