From: Eyvind Bernhardsen Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:25:18 +0000 (+0100) Subject: fast-import: Document the effect of "merge" with no "from" in a commit X-Git-Tag: v1.5.5-rc1~4 X-Git-Url: https://git.tokkee.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=9b33fa08b2d9507f8ffefe7649a59d23b4176185;p=git.git fast-import: Document the effect of "merge" with no "from" in a commit 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 Acked-by: Shawn O. Pearce Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- diff --git a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt index 96f676707..c29a4f812 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 `` is any of the commit specification expressions also accepted by `from` (see above).