Junio C Hamano wrote: > Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > Sorry, I misspoke. I was thinking of the case where fast-forwarding is > > impossible. > > When we cannot fast-forward (i.e. we have our own development that > is not in the tip of their history), > > --ff-only would cause the operation fail > --ff would become no-op (as it merely allows fast-forwarding) > --no-ff would become no-op (as it merely forbids fast-forwarding) > > and the latter two case, we'd either merge or rebase (with possibly > specified mode like --preserve-merges). I thought the current > documentation is already fairly clear on this point? Correct. But the documentation says absolutly nothing about `--ff-only --rebase`. > > If fast-forwarding is possible, --ff-only already effectively > > implies --no-rebase, and we might want to make that explicit in > > the documentation. > > When we fast-forward (i.e. their history is descendant from ours, > and the user did not give --no-ff), it does not matter if it is done > using the merge backend, the rebase backend, or by the "git pull" > wrapper. The end user does not care. The end result is that the tip > of the branch now points at the tip of the history we pulled from > the other side and that is all what matters. > > So, from that point of view, I do not think we want to say rebase or > merge or anything else for such a case in the documentation. Correct again. But currently the only way a fast-forward is possible is by doing `git merge --ff-only`, which is a merge done in a fast-forward way. If we add my proposed `git fast-forward` [1], then the documentation could be updated to say that --ff-only does a `git fast-forward`, and thus there's no need for `git merge` (or `git rebase`). [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20210705123209.1808663-4-felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx/ -- Felipe Contreras
