Re: log format for vc-bzr

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Eli Zaretskii writes:

 > > bzr revert --forget-merges
 > > 
 > > allows to commit into microbranches as one pleases and leave a nice
 > > corpse afterwards.
 > 
 > As usual, the Bazaar documentation doesn't say anything about this
 > option that can be grokked by Bazaar non-experts.
 > 
 >     --forget-merges 
 >       Remove pending merge marker, without changing any files.
 > 
 > What is a ``pending merge marker''?

A "pending merge" is a merge that you have started with "bzr merge"
(or perhaps a "bzr pull" that resulted in a conflict) but not yet
finished with "bzr commit".

The "pending merge marker" is an internal variable that (1) acts as a
flag that there is a merge pending, so you will be warned if you try
to do something that would mess up the merge, and (2) records the
additional parent to record in the commit.

 > And how removing it resolves the problem at hand?

By removing the pointer to the parents in the microbranch along with
the merge marker, the history (metadata) recorded in the microbranch
becomes inaccessible (in Lisp terms, garbage).  The "real" history
(files changed by the merge operation) is not touched, and so the
content changes, but not the historical metadata, is recorded in the
upcoming commit.

 > And if this is the magic wand to leave personal commit comments out
 > of the public repository, then shouldn't we add this to the
 > recommended workflow on the wiki?

It's a wiki ....