Changing commit messages

konrad.hinsen at laposte.net konrad.hinsen at laposte.net
Tue Jun 20 01:45:09 CDT 2006


On 19.06.2006, at 22:44, Matt Mackall wrote:

> 1. The whole point of a version control system is to make permanent
>    record of the history. Thus going back and changing things is
>    generally Not Allowed, and not accomodated for in the designs of
>    such systems. So you should be careful what you commit and accept
>    that mistakes will happen.

I agree as far as the versioned files are concerned, but metadata, in  
particular commit messages, are a bit different. If I make a mistake  
in a versioned file, I can change it and anyone who looks at the  
repository later on will immediately see the correction. If I make a  
mistake in a commit message, there is no way to fix it in such a way  
that a reader who sees the original text will also see the correction  
right next to it.

> 2. We have a nifty command called 'rollback' (formerly undo) which
>    undoes the last transaction, whether it was a pull or a commit. So

That is indeed useful, and sufficient for all the cases in which I  
have wished to fix a commit message. But I discovered its utility  
only due to this discussion - the weak spot of mercurial is  
documentation, in my opinion.

BTW, I started using mercurial less than a month ago, and I already  
regret not having known about it earlier. Keep up the good work!

Konrad.
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Konrad Hinsen
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