Re: [PATCH/RFC 0/2] rebase: add switches to control todo-list setup

[Phil Hord <phil.hord@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 7:44 AM Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> wrote:
> Doing "git rebase -i master" and then editing the todo list has the side
> effect of rebasing the branch. Often I find I want to amend or reword a
> commit without rebasing (for instance when preparing a re-roll). To do
> this I use a script that runs something like
>
> GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i s/pick $sha/edit $sha/" git rebase -i $sha^
>
> and I have my shell set up to interactively select a commit[1] so I
> don't have to cut and paste the output from git log. I've found this
> really useful as most of the time I just want to amend or reword a
> commit or squash fixups rather than rearranging commits. The script
> knows how to rewind a running rebase so I can amend several commits
> without having to start a new rebase each time.
>
> So I can see a use for --edit, --reword & --drop if they selected a
> suitable upstream to avoid unwanted rebases (I'm not so sure about the
> others though). If you want to rebase as well then I agree you might as
> well just edit the todo list.

I have the same need.  I plan to have some switch that invokes this
"in-place rebase" behavior so that git can choose the upstream for me
as `mergebase $sequence-edits`.  In fact, I want to make that the
default for these switches, but that feels too surprising for the
rebase command. I plan to progress like this:

    # --in-place switch is not supported; manual upstream is given by user
    git rebase --edit foo foo^

     # --in-place switch is added; now we can say this
     git rebase --edit foo --in-place

     # prefer in-place edits as default when editing
     git config --add rebase.in-place-edits true
     git rebase --edit foo

This --in-place switch would use `mergebase $sequence-edits` to find
my upstream parameter if I didn't give one explicitly.

This config option set to true would tell git to assume I meant to use
--in-place whenever I use some sequence-edit switch and I don't
specify an upstream.

I have written some of this code, but since I am running into
conflicts with next and pu, I haven't ironed it out yet.

Phil