Re: [RFC/PATCH v2] merge-base: teach "git merge-base" to accept more than 2 arguments

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

> BTW I seem to recall that get_merge_bases_many() was _not_ the same as 
> get_merge_octopus().  Could you please remind me what _many() does?

I explained what merge-bases-many gives in a separate message last night
with pictures.

get_merge_octopus() is a more or less useless function.  It is there only
because the protocol between "merge" and strategies requires that the
former have to pass _some_ bases to the latter.  In fact, the octopus
strategy implementation completely ignores the heads given by "merge";
a single set of merge base given from outside is not even useful when you
build octopus by repeatedly running pairwise three-way merges.

With Christian's git-merge-base enhancement, the big comment at the end of
git-merge-octopus's main loop can go with a much improved "next" merge
base computation.