Re: [PATCH] commit: correct advice about aborting a cherry-pick

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 11:42:00PM +0530, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

> When a cherry-pick results in an empty commit, git prints:
> 
>   The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution.
>   If you wish to commit it anyway, use:
> 
>       git commit --allow-empty
> 
>   Otherwise, please use 'git reset'
> 
> The last line is plain wrong in the case of a ranged pick, as a 'git
> reset' will fail to remove $GIT_DIR/sequencer, failing a subsequent
> cherry-pick or revert.  Change the advice to:
> 
>   git cherry-pick --abort

Hmm. I don't think I've run across this message myself, so perhaps I do
not understand the situation. But it seems like you would want to do one
of:

  1. Make an empty commit.

  2. Skip this commit and continue the rest of the cherry-pick sequence.

  3. Abort the cherry pick sequence.

Those are the options presented when rebase runs into an empty commit,
where (2) is presented as "rebase --skip". I'm not sure how to do that
here; is it just "cherry-pick --continue"?

>  I'd also really like to squelch this with an advice.* variable; any
>  suggestions?

This seems like a good candidate for squelching, but you would probably
want to split it. The two parts of the message are:

  1. What happened (the cherry-pick is empty).

  2. How to proceed from here (allow-empty, abort, etc).

You still want to say (1), but (2) is useless to old-timers.  Probably
something like advice.cherryPickInstructions would be a good name for an
option to squelch (2), and it should apply wherever we tell the user how
to proceed. Potentially it should even be advice.sequenceInstructions,
and apply to rebase and am as well.

-Peff