Re: git rebase -i

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 09:21:49AM +0000, John Tapsell wrote:

>   I often do   'git rebase -i HEAD~10'  to rebase.  Since afaics it
> doesn't matter if you go back 'too far' I just always use HEAD~10 even
> if it's just for the last or so commit.

Here are some reasons not to go back too far:

  1. The commits are displayed in order, so the ones that are
     interesting to the user are at the bottom. And HEAD~10 may display
     more than 10 commits in the face of non-linear history.

  2. rebase -i does not preserve merges by default. Which means that if
     HEAD~10 is not a linear history, then you are flattening the graph
     structure.

>   Would there be any objections to making  'git rebase -i' default to
> HEAD~10  or maybe 16 or 20.  Having sensible defaults for commands
> helps a bit with making it easier to use.

If you wanted to do something like this, a much more sensible cutoff
would be the location of an upstream tracking branch (e.g., as defined
by branch.*.rebase). Then you are literally asking for commits which
have not been published in your upstream, which means it is OK to
rewrite history (assuming they were not published elsewhere).

-Peff