There's also the option of cleaning up your commits using interactive rebase (git rebase -i, google for some examples, it's very neat).
Then there is the question of whether you actually want to have a merge-commit as a "sign-off" for the completed feature, and keep the smaller work-commits (although they should still be tidy and neat for future code archeology's sake). Some projects/teams avoid merge-commits at all costs, and other teams don't mind them at all. Personally, I tend to commit directly on master when doing smaller fixes (combining with git pull --rebase to avoid those ugly pull-merges). I create a feature branch when I set out to create a larger feature (that is, takes more than half a day or so). When I'm done, I tidy up the commits I've made in the branch, and then merge them (without squashing) back to master. In the merge commit message, I describe the feature in full. That way, when people study the history, they'll have a way of seeing both the larger-scope goal of the branch (the merge commit), while they still have the opportunity to drill further down in the branch commits to see why I did this and that (the commits on the branch). On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 2:26:49 AM UTC+1, John McKown wrote: > > Thanks. I either didn't see that in the books, or was asleep. I'll read up > on it. > On Dec 3, 2012 7:07 PM, "Ryan Hodson" <hodso...@gmail.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > >> I think what you're looking for is a squash merge. If you develop the >> change in a dedicated feature branch like you describe, you can >> transfer all of the changes to the master branch with the `--squash` >> flag as follows: >> >> git checkout master >> git merge --squash some-feature >> >> This concatenates all of your changes and adds it to the stage and >> doesn't create any kind of connection between `some-feature` and >> `master`. Then, you can run `git commit` to commit them to the master >> branch. The result will be a single commit that represents your entire >> feature. To delete all vestiges of the development work, just force >> delete the feature branch with `git branch -D some-feature`. Then push >> to the remote with a normal `git push`. >> >> Hope that helps. >> >> - Ryan >> >> >> >> On Dec 3, 2012 6:54 PM, "John McKown" <john.arch...@gmail.com<javascript:>> >> wrote: >> > >> > I've been reading "Version Control using git" (already finish Pro Git). >> One thing the author said was that git really encourages developers to >> commit frequently. Mainly because they have an entire (at the time) copy of >> the repository. So there's not a lot of overhead of sending files across >> the Internet (or Intranet). This sounds good to me. Basically, what I like >> to do is: "until satisified do; edit; compile; test; commit; done " I do >> this for every program. Once a "change" is complete, i.e. all programs and >> files modified, and tested, I then do a "git push" to the repository. >> > >> > But it occurs to me that this is a lot of commits for what is logically >> a single change. Would it be "better" to implement a single "change" as a >> single, well documented, commit? If so, then how to eliminate all those >> commits? What I've read says to do something like create a new branch; do >> all your development and commits in that branch; then do a "git checkout" >> back to "master" and do a single "git merge" of the new branch. The way >> that I read the doc, what happens is that your branch remains and the >> "master" branch commit has two parents. One from "master" the other from >> the "change" branch. What I was thinking would be better would be to >> completely remove all vestiges of the "change" branch. I think this can be >> done by abusing git as follows: >> > >> > git tag starting >> > git branch changes >> > until satisfied; do edit; compile; test; commit; done #use the changes >> branch for all development >> > git merge --no-commit changes >> > git branch -d changes >> > git reset --soft starting >> > git tag -d starting >> > git commit #put in a single commit with very detailed documentation >> > git push #push the change up to the origin >> > >> > Does this seem reasonable? Or am I entirely out of the ball park? >> > >> > -- >> > >> > >> >> -- >> >> >> --
