Matthias Baumgarten <matthias.baumgarten@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Add to Felipes list: > > * git switch -m > > and maybe git cherry-pick -m where -m does not mean "merge" itself but > is used to determine the parent of the merge (when picking merge > commits) to base on. > > Other examples of where -m has different meaning than merge: > > * git am -m (message-id) > * git branch -m (move branch) > > I would rephrase the question as to what would I expect `git pull -m` > to do, if I had never heard of it before. In the case of > fast-forwarding and rebasing trying to add a merge commit message with > -m would not even make sense. Only in the case of trying to create a > merge commit by issuing git pull this would make sense. So if we could > agree on that being not the most used scenario, I think -m would be a > great short option for --merge. I am afraid that you are misinterpreting what I said, comparing apples and oranges, and drawing a wrong conclusion. When I said "-m" would not fly well as a short-hand for "--merge" in the context of "pull", I didn't mean "nobody would think 'm' stands for 'merge'", and I didn't mean "more people would think 'm' stands for 'message' more than 'merge'". The reason why I find it problematic is because it can be ambiguous. When we step back and think about your "switch -m" and its synonym "checkout -m", we realize that these commands fundamentally never take "--message", as there is no place to record such a message (they do not create a commit after all), after they switch to a different branch while carrying the local modification forward by performing a (possibly conflicting) content-level merge. That is why we can give their "merge" operation a short-and-sweet "m" without confusing our users. So contrasting "switch" having "-m" that means "merge" with "pull" that can conceivably take both "merge" and "message" is not a comparison you can draw useful conclusion from.
