Re: questions / suggestions about history simplification

[Adam Spiers <git@adamspiers.org>]

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 12:20:52PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Adam Spiers <git@adamspiers.org> writes:
> 
> > 2. What difference does --dense ever make?
> 
> It is set by default, and --sparse is its opposite option, i.e. it
> turns revs->dense off.

Ah.  It appears to be missing from the man page that it's the default.

> When revs->dense is turned off, the usual treesame logic does not
> kick in to rewrite parents in a single strand of pearls (i.e. a
> stretch of history that solely consists of non-merge commits).

I see.

> > 3. Why is --sparse so called, given that it increases rather than
> >    decreases the number of commits shown?
> 
> The number of commits in the output will increase by including
> commits that are irrelevant to explain the history of paths
> specified by pathspec in revs->prune.  The information density
> decreases as the result, and that is what "sparse" signifies.

Ah OK, that makes sense now, but not the most intuitive choice of name
IMHO.  I would have gone for something like --all-commits, but I guess
it's way too late to change now.