From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Marc Branchaud <marcnarc@xiplink.com>
Subject: Re: Heads up: major rebase -i -p rework coming up
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:10:53 -0500
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Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Stephen Haberman <stephen@exigencecorp.com>,
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To: Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>
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Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> - $sha1'
> 
> 	for merge and goto, if a $sha1 ends in a single quote, the 
> 	rewritten commit is substituted (if there is one)

I find this notation fairly unintuitive.  I'm more inclined to let users 
specify their own names for important parts of the rebase.

I guess that's what Junio's 'mark' command is for, but not having seen a 
proper explanation of 'mark', I suggest instead a more inline method: an 
'as' keyword.  Any command in a todo script can be followed (on the same 
line, before the SHA1 value) with 'as <name>' allowing <name> to appear 
later in the script to refer to the result of the earlier command.

So the script in the example becomes

	pick as start A
	pick C
	pick as bottom D
	goto start
	pick B
	merge bottom was E

I find that much easier to understand.  Especially when real SHA1 values 
are floating around everywhere, I think this notation will help users 
get things right.

This approach also allows a commit name "A" to consistently refer to the 
original commit, which I think also makes things easier for users.

		M.