Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>>>> Some non-judgemental descriptive output like
>>>>
>>>> $ git commit --amend --no-edit
>>>> No changes.
>>>> $
>>>>
>>>> would address this case, without bothering people who are doing it
>>>> intentionally. So I think there's room for a simple improvement here.
>>>
>>> I do that to refresh the committer timestamp.
>>
>> I do, too. The proposal is, paraphrasing,
>>
>> $ git commit --amend --no-edit
>> Ah, I see that you want me to refresh the committer timestamp.
>> Done, as requested.
>> $
>
> Ah, OK then. I somehow misread "No changes." as an error message.
Well, on second thought, I think "fatal: no changes" that exits with
non-zero, with "--force" as an escape hatch for those who want to
refresh the committer timestamp, would probably be more in line with
the expectation Lukas had when this thread was started, and I further
suspect that it might be a bit more end-user friendly.
It is a backward incompatible behaviour, but I suspect that if I
were inventing "commit --amend" today, unlike 8588452c ("git-commit
--amend: allow empty commit.", 2006-03-04), I probably would design
it that way. After all, failing and stopping is always a safer
option than going ahead with or without a report.
I am not sure which one between "go ahead anyway but report" and
"fail by default but allow forcing" I would prefer more. At least
not yet. But I won't rule the latter out at this point.
Thanks.
