Re: clone breaks replace

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Phillip Susi wrote:

> It seems that the recommended use of replace is to locally append
> history back on, after it has been removed upstream with git
> filter-branch.  Using filter-branch is bad, so it makes more sense to me
> to do the remove with git replace, and then if you want to add it back,
> you just have to disable the replace ( and maybe fetch additional objects ).
>
> The one problem that has come up is that when you fetch and tell the
> server you have a commit after the replace, it assumes that you also
> have the commits prior to the replace and may delta against objects you
> do not have.  Fixing that would require informing the server of any
> replacements you have, and it being able to use that information to
> avoid deltas against objects hidden by the replace.
>
> Does that sound like a pretty good summary to everyone?

Yes, except for "Using filter-branch is bad".  Using filter-branch is
not bad.  Also there are many recommended uses of replace: for example,
to swap out a commit that builds for one that doesn't when using "git
bisect", or to stage history changes before making them permanent with
filter-branch.