rebase -i: introduce --rebase-merges=[no-]rebase-cousins

When running `git rebase --rebase-merges` non-interactively with an
ancestor of HEAD as <upstream> (or leaving the todo list unmodified),
we would ideally recreate the exact same commits as before the rebase.

However, if there are commits in the commit range <upstream>.. that do not
have <upstream> as direct ancestor (i.e. if `git log <upstream>..` would
show commits that are omitted by `git log --ancestry-path <upstream>..`),
this is currently not the case: we would turn them into commits that have
<upstream> as direct ancestor.

Let's illustrate that with a diagram:

        C
      /   \
A - B - E - F
  \   /
    D

Currently, after running `git rebase -i --rebase-merges B`, the new branch
structure would be (pay particular attention to the commit `D`):

       --- C' --
      /         \
A - B ------ E' - F'
      \    /
        D'

This is not really preserving the branch topology from before! The
reason is that the commit `D` does not have `B` as ancestor, and
therefore it gets rebased onto `B`.

This is unintuitive behavior. Even worse, when recreating branch
structure, most use cases would appear to want cousins *not* to be
rebased onto the new base commit. For example, Git for Windows (the
heaviest user of the Git garden shears, which served as the blueprint
for --rebase-merges) frequently merges branches from `next` early, and
these branches certainly do *not* want to be rebased. In the example
above, the desired outcome would look like this:

       --- C' --
      /         \
A - B ------ E' - F'
  \        /
   -- D' --

Let's introduce the term "cousins" for such commits ("D" in the
example), and let's not rebase them by default. For hypothetical
use cases where cousins *do* need to be rebased, `git rebase
--rebase=merges=rebase-cousins` needs to be used.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>

Author: dscho

Documentation/git-rebase.txt

@@ -380,7 +380,7 @@ rebase.instructionFormat.  A customized instruction format will automatically
 have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
 
 -r::
---rebase-merges::
+--rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]::
 	By default, a rebase will simply drop merge commits from the todo
 	list, and put the rebased commits into a single, linear branch.
 	With `--rebase-merges`, the rebase will instead try to preserve
@@ -389,9 +389,16 @@ have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
 	manual amendments in these merge commits will have to be
 	resolved/re-applied manually.
 +
-This mode is similar in spirit to `--preserve-merges`, but in contrast to
-that option works well in interactive rebases: commits can be reordered,
-inserted and dropped at will.
+By default, or when `no-rebase-cousins` was specified, commits which do not
+have `<upstream>` as direct ancestor will keep their original branch point,
+i.e. commits that would be excluded by gitlink:git-log[1]'s
+`--ancestry-path` option will keep their original ancestry by default. If
+the `rebase-cousins` mode is turned on, such commits are instead rebased
+onto `<upstream>` (or `<onto>`, if specified).
++
+The `--rebase-merges` mode is similar in spirit to `--preserve-merges`, but
+in contrast to that option works well in interactive rebases: commits can be
+reordered, inserted and dropped at will.
 +
 It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
 `recursive` merge strategy; Different merge strategies can be used only via

builtin/rebase--helper.c

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ int cmd_rebase__helper(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 {
 	struct replay_opts opts = REPLAY_OPTS_INIT;
 	unsigned flags = 0, keep_empty = 0, rebase_merges = 0;
-	int abbreviate_commands = 0;
+	int abbreviate_commands = 0, rebase_cousins = -1;
 	enum {
 		CONTINUE = 1, ABORT, MAKE_SCRIPT, SHORTEN_OIDS, EXPAND_OIDS,
 		CHECK_TODO_LIST, SKIP_UNNECESSARY_PICKS, REARRANGE_SQUASH,
@@ -25,6 +25,8 @@ int cmd_rebase__helper(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 		OPT_BOOL(0, "allow-empty-message", &opts.allow_empty_message,
 			N_("allow commits with empty messages")),
 		OPT_BOOL(0, "rebase-merges", &rebase_merges, N_("rebase merge commits")),
+		OPT_BOOL(0, "rebase-cousins", &rebase_cousins,
+			 N_("keep original branch points of cousins")),
 		OPT_CMDMODE(0, "continue", &command, N_("continue rebase"),
 				CONTINUE),
 		OPT_CMDMODE(0, "abort", &command, N_("abort rebase"),
@@ -59,8 +61,13 @@ int cmd_rebase__helper(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	flags |= keep_empty ? TODO_LIST_KEEP_EMPTY : 0;
 	flags |= abbreviate_commands ? TODO_LIST_ABBREVIATE_CMDS : 0;
 	flags |= rebase_merges ? TODO_LIST_REBASE_MERGES : 0;
+	flags |= rebase_cousins > 0 ? TODO_LIST_REBASE_COUSINS : 0;
 	flags |= command == SHORTEN_OIDS ? TODO_LIST_SHORTEN_IDS : 0;
 
+	if (rebase_cousins >= 0 && !rebase_merges)
+		warning(_("--[no-]rebase-cousins has no effect without "
+			  "--rebase-merges"));
+
 	if (command == CONTINUE && argc == 1)
 		return !!sequencer_continue(&opts);
 	if (command == ABORT && argc == 1)

git-rebase--interactive.sh

@@ -971,6 +971,7 @@ git_rebase__interactive () {
 
 	git rebase--helper --make-script ${keep_empty:+--keep-empty} \
 		${rebase_merges:+--rebase-merges} \
+		${rebase_cousins:+--rebase-cousins} \
 		$revisions ${restrict_revision+^$restrict_revision} >"$todo" ||
 	die "$(gettext "Could not generate todo list")"
 

git-rebase.sh

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ q,quiet!           be quiet. implies --no-stat
 autostash          automatically stash/stash pop before and after
 fork-point         use 'merge-base --fork-point' to refine upstream
 onto=!             rebase onto given branch instead of upstream
-r,rebase-merges!   try to rebase merges instead of skipping them
+r,rebase-merges?   try to rebase merges instead of skipping them
 p,preserve-merges! try to recreate merges instead of ignoring them
 s,strategy=!       use the given merge strategy
 no-ff!             cherry-pick all commits, even if unchanged
@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@ state_dir=
 # One of {'', continue, skip, abort}, as parsed from command line
 action=
 rebase_merges=
+rebase_cousins=
 preserve_merges=
 autosquash=
 keep_empty=
@@ -286,6 +287,15 @@ do
 		rebase_merges=t
 		test -z "$interactive_rebase" && interactive_rebase=implied
 		;;
+	--rebase-merges=*)
+		rebase_merges=t
+		case "${1#*=}" in
+		rebase-cousins) rebase_cousins=t;;
+		no-rebase-cousins) rebase_cousins=;;
+		*) die "Unknown mode: $1";;
+		esac
+		test -z "$interactive_rebase" && interactive_rebase=implied
+		;;
 	--preserve-merges)
 		preserve_merges=t
 		test -z "$interactive_rebase" && interactive_rebase=implied

sequencer.c

@@ -3578,6 +3578,7 @@ static int make_script_with_merges(struct pretty_print_context *pp,
 				   unsigned flags)
 {
 	int keep_empty = flags & TODO_LIST_KEEP_EMPTY;
+	int rebase_cousins = flags & TODO_LIST_REBASE_COUSINS;
 	struct strbuf buf = STRBUF_INIT, oneline = STRBUF_INIT;
 	struct strbuf label = STRBUF_INIT;
 	struct commit_list *commits = NULL, **tail = &commits, *iter;
@@ -3755,6 +3756,9 @@ static int make_script_with_merges(struct pretty_print_context *pp,
 					   &commit->object.oid);
 			if (entry)
 				to = entry->string;
+			else if (!rebase_cousins)
+				to = label_oid(&commit->object.oid, NULL,
+					       &state);
 
 			if (!to || !strcmp(to, "onto"))
 				fprintf(out, "%s onto\n", cmd_reset);

sequencer.h

@@ -60,6 +60,12 @@ int sequencer_remove_state(struct replay_opts *opts);
 #define TODO_LIST_SHORTEN_IDS (1U << 1)
 #define TODO_LIST_ABBREVIATE_CMDS (1U << 2)
 #define TODO_LIST_REBASE_MERGES (1U << 3)
+/*
+ * When rebasing merges, commits that do have the base commit as ancestor
+ * ("cousins") are *not* rebased onto the new base by default. If those
+ * commits should be rebased onto the new base, this flag needs to be passed.
+ */
+#define TODO_LIST_REBASE_COUSINS (1U << 4)
 int sequencer_make_script(FILE *out, int argc, const char **argv,
 			  unsigned flags);
 

t/t3430-rebase-merges.sh

@@ -176,6 +176,24 @@ test_expect_success 'with a branch tip that was cherry-picked already' '
 	EOF
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'do not rebase cousins unless asked for' '
+	git checkout -b cousins master &&
+	before="$(git rev-parse --verify HEAD)" &&
+	test_tick &&
+	git rebase -r HEAD^ &&
+	test_cmp_rev HEAD $before &&
+	test_tick &&
+	git rebase --rebase-merges=rebase-cousins HEAD^ &&
+	test_cmp_graph HEAD^.. <<-\EOF
+	*   Merge the topic branch '\''onebranch'\''
+	|\
+	| * D
+	| * G
+	|/
+	o H
+	EOF
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'refs/rewritten/* is worktree-local' '
 	git worktree add wt &&
 	cat >wt/script-from-scratch <<-\EOF &&