[ANNOUNCE/RFC] cj-git-patchtool: a "rebase -i" with more interaction

[ANNOUNCE/RFC] cj-git-patchtool: a "rebase -i" with more interaction

[Christian Jaeger]

Hi

I've always been a frequent user of git rebase -i to clean up private
branches before publication. I like committing without thinking while
coding and then grouping the commits sensibly afterwards. But git
rebase -i didn't scale for me for this purpose, cleaning up several
days (or even weeks) of work would become a pain because frequently
I'd make some error, like when dealing with conflicts, and then
multiple rebase -i runs are needed, requiring to partially redo the
work.

So I've written a set of tools[1] that separates the acts of editing
and applying history changes. It does this by turning the history in
question into a set of git patch files and a file containing the list
of the patches (and optionally new commit messages), and allows to
edit both the list and the patch files themselves incrementally until
they can be applied cleanly again in the new order. In other words, an
(attempted) application (cj-git-patchtool's "app" command) will not
remove these files, and if there's a problem the existing files can be
further refined. There's also a command "wig" that uses "wiggle" (by
Neil Brown) to try to apply a patch automatically when git or patch
wouldn't accept it, and if successful, stores the result back into the
patch file so that it will be reused on subsequent "app" runs. For
convenience, these files, which are put inside a newly created
directory, are automatically checked into their own git repository,
too, so when doing something really complicated, the state of work can
be committed and reverted easily when reaching a dead end.

For more information see the README on Github.[1]

This works well for me, I'm now always using it whenever I need to do
more than a couple trivial changes to a Git history.

I don't know whether there are other tools offering the same now.
Also, I have written this "just for myself", and for this reason made
use of a set of never-before released Perl libraries of mine. If
there's general interest in this tool, I'll be glad to help get rid of
the dependency on these libraries (or clean them up and publish them
properly, too).

I welcome your comments.

Christian.

[1] https://github.com/pflanze/cj-git-patchtool

Re: [ANNOUNCE/RFC] cj-git-patchtool: a "rebase -i" with more interaction

[Jakub Narebski]

Christian Jaeger <chrjae@gmail.com> writes:

> So I've written a set of tools[1] that separates the acts of editing
> and applying history changes.
[...]
> 
> For more information see the README on Github.[1]
[...]

I have added cj-git-patchtool to "Patch-management Interface layers"
section of "Interfaces, frontends and tools" page on Git Wiki:

  https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Interfaces,_frontends,_and_tools#cj-git-patchtool

Please check if it is correct, and improve project description if
needed.

> I don't know whether there are other tools offering the same now.
> Also, I have written this "just for myself", and for this reason made
> use of a set of never-before released Perl libraries of mine. If
> there's general interest in this tool, I'll be glad to help get rid of
> the dependency on these libraries (or clean them up and publish them
> properly, too).

I use one of patch management interfaces for that, namely StGit.  It
operates on stack of patches, which you can apply and unapply, going
back and forth and correcting them.

-- 
Jakub Narębski

Re: [ANNOUNCE/RFC] cj-git-patchtool: a "rebase -i" with more interaction

[Christian Jaeger]

2011/8/3 Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>:
> I have added cj-git-patchtool to "Patch-management Interface layers"
> section of "Interfaces, frontends and tools" page on Git Wiki:

Cool, thanks!

> I use one of patch management interfaces for that, namely StGit.  It
> operates on stack of patches, which you can apply and unapply, going
> back and forth and correcting them.

I knew StGit existed, but I've never actually tried it. Now I also see
that the description of Guilt actually sounds exactly what
cj-git-patchtool does. (I was expecting that these tools would just
let me easily create sets of patches, similar to Darcs, not that
they'd actually allow to edit patches to fix conflicts.) I'll have to
try them out as soon as I find some time. Thanks for the hint.

Christian.