Re: Cluttering the git tree

[Ulf Jasper <ulf.jasper@web.de>]

Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com> writes:

> Ulf Jasper <ulf.jasper@web.de> writes:
>
>> I just noticed that I cluttered the git tree with my last commit.  All
>> my intermediate commits which were supposed to be visible only to me
>> suddenly appeared in the public repository.  Sorry!
>
> Another idea is to put your intermediate commits into a new branch and
> then merge them into master with git merge --squash.

That is, what I was looking for.  Thank you, Bill!

This is how I (will) work: I am not changing files on the master branch
but on a temporary branch, while keeping the master branch synced with
the public repository, like so:

    a - b - c - d    master
         \
          x - y - z  temporary

I am doing commits on the temporary branch so that I can easily switch
branches.  Once I have finished working on the temporary thing I merge
the *results* of that work into the master branch

    git checkout master
    git merge --squash temporary

The magic '--squash' guarantees that there will not be any intermediate
commits.  After resolving merge conflicts it looks as if I had made the
temporary changes directly on the master branch.  After committing the
changed files (with its own commit message) I get

    a - b - c - d - e    master
         \
          x - y - z      temporary

where 'e' now contains all the changes of 'z'.  Now I'm ready to push
'e' to the public repository and delete the temporary branch (with
'-D').  There is just one commit -- nobody will be bothered with any
intermediate commits.  Voila!

Ulf

P.S. I have tried this on a local repository and verified that it
     works. I am quite confident that it will work on the official
     repository as well.  But I may be wrong.  We'll see.  ;)