[PATCH 0 of 1] Introduce backout --linear

[Gilles Moris]

On Tuesday 14 September 2010 07:47:53 pm Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 09:24 +0200, Gilles Moris wrote:
> > I remember that somebody proposed this backout --linear option at some
> > point of time. As I did not anything coming, I've just step in.
>
> Adding an option to rebase to do it is one approach, but not the
> preferred one. Instead, I think we should improve the core merge code to
> take an optional ancestor argument. This will make it easier to make
> linear backouts the default and also let us greatly simplify the rebase
> code.

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Incidentally, I have exactly that in one 
of my patch queues. It enables to do:
- cross branches updates of the working directory
- a "port" command that can transplant changesets using the modified merge

It seems to work, but the main problem is with rename/copies. It seems closely 
linked to the backward merge issues with rename/copies.
I am not available tonight, but I'll try later to log to IRC to discuss that 
and may be post my patches as they are now.

Note that this backout patch does not need any modification of the core merge. 
The backout command already ensures that we can do a linear update.
But as I understand, you would like generic "port" command that will include 
also the backout workflow, right ?

Regards.
Gilles.