Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Documentation: update to git-merge-base --octopus
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Unlike plain merge-base, merge-base --octopus only requires at least one
commit argument; update the synopsis to reflect that.

Add a sentence to the discussion that when --octopus is used, we do expect
'2' (the common ansestor across all) as the result.

Signed-off-by: Vincent van Ravesteijn <vfr@lyx.org>
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
  • Loading branch information
Vincent van Ravesteijn authored and Junio C Hamano committed Apr 15, 2011
1 parent 810cae5 commit 5729482
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 7 additions and 2 deletions.
6 changes: 5 additions & 1 deletion Documentation/git-merge-base.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -9,7 +9,8 @@ git-merge-base - Find as good common ancestors as possible for a merge
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git merge-base' [-a|--all] [--octopus] <commit> <commit>...
'git merge-base' [-a|--all] <commit> <commit>...
'git merge-base' [-a|--all] --octopus <commit>...
'git merge-base' --independent <commit>...

DESCRIPTION
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -89,6 +90,9 @@ and the result of `git merge-base A M` is '1'. Commit '2' is also a
common ancestor between 'A' and 'M', but '1' is a better common ancestor,
because '2' is an ancestor of '1'. Hence, '2' is not a merge base.

The result of `git merge-base --octopus A B C` is '2', because '2' is
the best common ancestor of all commits.

When the history involves criss-cross merges, there can be more than one
'best' common ancestor for two commits. For example, with this topology:

Expand Down
3 changes: 2 additions & 1 deletion builtin/merge-base.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -23,7 +23,8 @@ static int show_merge_base(struct commit **rev, int rev_nr, int show_all)
}

static const char * const merge_base_usage[] = {
"git merge-base [-a|--all] [--octopus] <commit> <commit>...",
"git merge-base [-a|--all] <commit> <commit>...",
"git merge-base [-a|--all] --octopus <commit>...",
"git merge-base --independent <commit>...",
NULL
};
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 5729482

Please sign in to comment.