On Fri, 9 Feb 2018, Philip Oakley wrote: > From: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > On Fri, 9 Feb 2018, Philip Oakley, CEng MIET wrote: > (apologies for using the fancy letters after the name ID...) > > > >> From: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> > > >> > writing a short tutorial on "git bisect" and, all the details > >> > of special exit code 125 aside, if one wanted to locate the > >> > first unbuildable commit, would it be sufficient to just run? > >> > > >> > $ git bisect run make > >> > > >> > as i read it, make returns either 0, 1 or 2 so there doesn't > >> > appear to be any possibility of weirdness with clashing with a > >> > 125 exit code. am i overlooking some subtle detail here i > >> > should be aware of? thanks. > >> > > >> > rday > >> > >> In the spirit of pedanticism, one should also clarify the word > >> "first", in that it's not a linear search for _an_ unbuildable > >> commit, but that one is looking for the transition between an > >> unbroken sequence of unbuildable commits, which transitions to > >> buildable commits, and its the transition that is sought. (there > >> could be many random unbuildable commits within a sequence in > >> some folks' processes!) > > > > quite so, i should have been more precise. > > > > rday > > The other two things that may be happening (in the wider bisect > discussion) that I've heard of are: > 1. there may be feature branches that bypass the known good starting > commit, which can cause understanding issues as those side > branches that predate the start point are also considered > potential bu commits. ... snip ... sorry, i should have replied to this post since my last post directly addresses this scenario -- i believe this is precisely what you were suggesting: ... 50000 commits ... (feature branch) / ^ / \ v \ A <-- B <-- <GOOD> <-- D <-- E <-- F <-- <BAD> i'm still curious ... if one doesn't get into skipping, what is the "git rev-list" command to identify all of the possible revisions to be tested here? isn't it just: $ git rev-list <BAD> ^<GOOD> or was there somthing more subtle i was missing? sorry if someone already explained this, i'll go back later and read the replies in more excruciating detail. rday p.s. i'll take a closer look at the "--bisect*" options to "git rev-list" shortly.