On Mon, 23 Mar 2009, Thomas Rast wrote:
> Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > mkdir x
> > cd x
> > git-init
> > echo hi > greating
> > git-commit -a
> [...]
> > git-format-patch HEAD^ produces an error,
>
> There is no HEAD^ in this case. HEAD is always the currently checked
> out commit. Since it has a root commit, it has no parent, so you
> cannot apply ^ ("the first parent of") to it. Similarly, HEAD~2 will
> not work if HEAD~1 has no parent, etc.
Yes, I can understand this, still from the high-level PoV, this looks
inconsistent:
git-format-patch HEAD
never produces anything, which means for me, I'm trying to extract commits
for a 0-length range.
git-format-patch HEAD^
Usually produces the "current" or the "last" commit - except if you're
currently on the first commit... But I'm not insisting on this one - maybe
you're right, it just _does_ look weird.
Just try to forget about the meaning of the command. You are somewhere on
the commit timeline. You enter "some" command, which usually produces
exactly one - the most recent commit. So, I would expect this to work
always when there is at least one commit in the tree.
So, maybe it would make sense to refer to the point before-the-root-commit
every time root's parent is requested?
> > git-format-patch -1 produces a 0-byte long patch.
>
> That is admittedly weird and probably deserves a fix and/or suggestion
> to use --root.
>
> I'm not sure what else I can add to the explanations I gave on IRC.
Thanks for answering again, I just wanted to make sure this "weirdness"
doesn't get lost, and possibly gets fixed. I think, you suggested yourself
to post to the list, so I did.
Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
Freelance Open-Source Software Developer
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