Re: Testing git-debrebase/dgit in the linux git repo

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Ian Jackson writes ("Re: Testing git-debrebase/dgit in the linux git repo"):
> If you want to try this out on some actual existing merges in your
> existing history, you can do it by passing
>   --experimental-merge-resolution
> on the command line.  If this is successful it will generate a merge
> commit in your breakwater which new enough git-debrebase should be
> willing to recognise and not try to rewrite, even without that option.

Hrm, I see the manpage warning is a bit overblown.  In particular

  branch structures that require the use of this same option by other
  people.

is not true.  (Or at least not suppose to be.)  I think mangling of
your source code is unlikely, too.  The merge code does have a couple
of test cases that prove it works in at least one case, and that it is
in principle possible to resolve a conflict.

I think I wrote the manpage before I wrote the tests, when the feature
had basically not been run.


If I knew something about what kinds of things are likely to have
occurred on the two branches that you're merging, I could be more
helpful about whether the merge algorithm would work for you.

I could also think about how to deal with your merge cases.  I suspect
that dealing with merges automatically is possible in a number of
(fairly common) specific kinds of scenario, even though writing a
single algorithm to solve the whole problem in all of those cases is
hard.

Ian.