On Wed, 9 May 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote: > Many people seem to enjoy per-hunk commits, but I seldom do that. Maybe > it's just because I'm *so* comfortable with diffs, that when I clean up an > ugly sequence of commits, what I do is literally: > > - I make sure that my ugly sequence of commits is on some temporary > branch, but that the _end_result_ is good and clean (ie I will have > tested the end result fairly well, and made sure that there are no > debug statements etc crud left). > > I would call this branch something like "target", because the end > result of that branch is what I'm looking for - even if the commits in > the sequence that gets me there are individually ugly! > > - I just switch back to my starting point (and now I'm usually on > "master"), and do > > git diff -R target > diff > > to create a diff of my current tree (which is initially the starting > point) to the good result. > > - I actually edit the "diff" file by hand, and edit it down to the part I > actually want to commit as the first in the series. And then I just do > a "git-apply diff" to actually apply that part to my working tree. > > - I then edit any missing parts in the actual working tree (for example, > if there were mixed hunks that I want to get to in later commits, and I > edited out above, or that I need to partially undo), to do any > finishing touches. > > - I now have a tree I can compile and test, and has the "first part" of > the journey towards the final "target" state. If compiling/testing > shows that I missed something, I can still fix things, and/or go back > to doing another "git diff -R target" to see if I missed something). > > - I commit that first case, and repeat the sequence from step 2 (and > at every step, the "diff" file ends up shrinking and shrinking). > > The above sounds like it's a complicated sequence, but it really isn't. > Partly because I just am very comfortable with diffs indeed (probably more > than most people), but partly because at all times "git diff" works fine > to see what I've done, and what the diff to "target" is. It only sounds like a complicated sequence because you didn't write a script to do it... $ git checkout -b clean origin $ git-refine target (edit the patch in the editor that pops up) $ git-refine Test changes and commit $ make test ... $ git commit (write message) $ git-refine (edit the patch, etc) ... $ git commit $ git-refine All done. I actually wrote it years ago, but I couldn't describe my workflow well enough, so I didn't submit it. If everybody seems to be doing the same thing, I can submit my script... -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank* - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
