Re: [PATCH v5 0/4] history: add squash subcommand to fold a range

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

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

> On 26/06/2026 10:57, Harald Nordgren wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 10:53 AM Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> wrote:>> >> Only accepting a single argument is quite limiting as one
>>> cannot say
>>>
>>>          git history squash ^:/base :/tip
>> 
>> I don't understand why this is limiting? It thought it was clear that
>> it should be one argument REF1..REF2 ? What does '^:/base :/tip'
>> achieve that '^:/base..:/tip' cannot?
>
> '^/:base..:/tip' is not a range - everything after the first '/:' is 
> treated as a regular expression to search for.

This particular case you can do

	HEAD^{/base}..HEAD^{/tip}

(or even go "HEAD^{/tip}~43" and fancier other forms, the point
being with matching {} pair, you can do more than what the lazy
short-hand form can).

But I think your point still stands, I think, as

	git history squash HEAD^{/base}..:/tip ^main

may be something you would want to do to express additional
constraints, like "I want this range squashed, but I should never
ever touch what is already in main".