The fast-import documentation currently does not document the behaviour
of "merge" when there is no "from" in a commit. This patch adds a
description of what happens: the commit is created with a parent, but
no files. This behaviour is equivalent to "from" followed by
"filedeleteall".
Signed-off-by: Eyvind Bernhardsen <eyvind-git@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
On 21. mars. 2008, at 14.57, Eyvind Bernhardsen wrote:
It turns out that I'm an idiot and you're right. I'll rewrite the
patch to reflect that the "merge" behaviour only applies when
creating a branch.
Second attempt, now with 58% more understanding.
Documentation/git-fast-import.txt | 11 ++++++++---
1 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt b/Documentation/git-
fast-import.txt
index 96f6767..c29a4f8 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt
@@ -385,6 +385,9 @@ new commit.
Omitting the `from` command in the first commit of a new branch
will cause fast-import to create that commit with no ancestor. This
tends to be desired only for the initial commit of a project.
+If the frontend creates all files from scratch when making a new
+branch, a `merge` command may be used instead of `from` to start
+the commit with an empty tree.
Omitting the `from` command on existing branches is usually desired,
as the current commit on that branch is automatically assumed to
be the first ancestor of the new commit.
@@ -427,13 +430,15 @@ existing value of the branch.
`merge`
^^^^^^^
-Includes one additional ancestor commit, and makes the current
-commit a merge commit. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per
+Includes one additional ancestor commit. If the `from` command is
+omitted when creating a new branch, the first `merge` commit will be
+the first ancestor of the current commit, and the branch will start
+out with no files. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per
commit are permitted by fast-import, thereby establishing an n-way
merge.
However Git's other tools never create commits with more than 15
additional ancestors (forming a 16-way merge). For this reason
it is suggested that frontends do not use more than 15 `merge`
-commands per commit.
+commands per commit; 16, if starting a new, empty branch.
Here `<committish>` is any of the commit specification expressions
also accepted by `from` (see above).
--
1.5.5.rc0.9.g6e103
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