git-rebase: Clarify usage statement and copy it into the actual documentation.
authorCarl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>
Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:10:12 +0000 (17:10 -0800)
committerJunio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:45:32 +0000 (17:45 -0800)
I found a paper thin man page for git-rebase, but was quite happy to
see something much more useful in the usage statement of the script
when I went there to find out how this thing worked. Here it is
cleaned up slightly and expanded a bit into the actual documentation.

Signed-off-by: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Documentation/git-rebase.txt
git-rebase.sh

index 16c158f439c7299b92c4419d8a6233ef20fed914..f037d1280eb629339d82bb1eabf0ede7a1e25708 100644 (file)
@@ -7,14 +7,54 @@ git-rebase - Rebase local commits to new upstream head.
 
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
-'git-rebase' <upstream> [<head>]
+'git-rebase' [--onto <newbase>] <upstream> [<branch>]
 
 DESCRIPTION
 -----------
-Rebases local commits to the new head of the upstream tree.
+git-rebase applies to <upstream> (or optionally to <newbase>) commits
+from <branch> that do not appear in <upstream>. When <branch> is not
+specified it defaults to the current branch (HEAD).
+
+When git-rebase is complete, <branch> will be updated to point to the
+newly created line of commit objects, so the previous line will not be
+accessible unless there are other references to it already.
+
+Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":
+
+          A---B---C topic
+         /
+    D---E---F---G master
+
+From this point, the result of the following commands:
+
+    git-rebase master
+    git-rebase master topic
+
+would be:
+
+                  A'--B'--C' topic
+                 /
+    D---E---F---G master
+
+While, starting from the same point, the result of the following
+commands:
+
+    git-rebase --onto master~1 master
+    git-rebase --onto master~1 master topic
+
+would be:
+
+              A'--B'--C' topic
+             /
+    D---E---F---G master
 
 OPTIONS
 -------
+<newbase>::
+       Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
+       --onto option is not specified, the starting point is
+       <upstream>.
+
 <upstream>::
        Upstream branch to compare against.
 
index 21c3d83c3ade9bfb0cdabb00928eab4606062c1a..211bf6896844ddf2cc903c4c8fcf0f021c3d8131 100755 (executable)
@@ -4,24 +4,28 @@
 #
 
 USAGE='[--onto <newbase>] <upstream> [<branch>]'
-LONG_USAGE='If <branch> is specified, switch to that branch first.  Then,
-extract commits in the current branch that are not in <upstream>,
-and reconstruct the current on top of <upstream>, discarding the original
-development history.  If --onto <newbase> is specified, the history is
-reconstructed on top of <newbase>, instead of <upstream>.  For example,
-while on "topic" branch:
+LONG_USAGE='git-rebase applies to <upstream> (or optionally to <newbase>) commits
+from <branch> that do not appear in <upstream>. When <branch> is not
+specified it defaults to the current branch (HEAD).
+
+When git-rebase is complete, <branch> will be updated to point to the
+newly created line of commit objects, so the previous line will not be
+accessible unless there are other references to it already.
+
+Assuming the following history:
 
           A---B---C topic
          /
     D---E---F---G master
 
-       $ '"$0"' --onto master~1 master topic
+The result of the following command:
 
-would rewrite the history to look like this:
+    git-rebase --onto master~1 master topic
 
+  would be:
 
-             A'\''--B'\''--C'\'' topic
-            /
+              A'\''--B'\''--C'\'' topic
+             /
     D---E---F---G master
 '