Re: [RFC/PATCH v2] merge-base: teach "git merge-base" to accept more than 2 arguments

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi,

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
> 
> > BTW I seem to recall that get_merge_bases_many() was _not_ the same as 
> > get_merge_octopus().  Could you please remind me what _many() does?
> 
> I explained what merge-bases-many gives in a separate message last night 
> with pictures.

I missed that, alright.

> get_merge_octopus() is a more or less useless function.  It is there 
> only because the protocol between "merge" and strategies requires that 
> the former have to pass _some_ bases to the latter.

Does it?  I thought that e.g. merge-recursive accepts an empty set of 
merge bases?  AFAIR that was the reason why gitk could be merged so well.

> In fact, the octopus strategy implementation completely ignores the 
> heads given by "merge"; a single set of merge base given from outside is 
> not even useful when you build octopus by repeatedly running pairwise 
> three-way merges.
> 
> With Christian's git-merge-base enhancement, the big comment at the end 
> of git-merge-octopus's main loop can go with a much improved "next" 
> merge base computation.

Okay.

Ciao,
Dscho