tg-export: New command for cleaning up history

[topgit.git] / README

diff --git a/README b/README
index f914647ed7b59ff0798062f385de68caef1cf435..275043b2c2bd05060dd011a369e9739cce1cad07 100644 (file)
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -203,7 +203,10 @@ tg create
        the current branch is assumed to be the only dependency.
 
        After `tg create`, you should insert the patch description
-       to the '.topmsg' file.
+       to the '.topmsg' file, which will already contain some
+       pre-filled bits. You can set topgit.to, topgit.cc and topgit.bcc
+       configuration variables in order to have `tg create`
+       add these headers with given default values to '.topmsg'.
 
        The main task of `tg create` is to set up the topic branch
        base from the dependencies. This may fail due to merge conflicts.
@@ -258,6 +261,50 @@ tg summary
        TODO: Speed up by an order of magnitude
        TODO: Graph view
 
+tg export
+~~~~~~~~~
+       Create a new branch containing tidied-up history
+       of the current topic branch and its dependencies,
+       suitable for pull by upstream - each topic branch
+       corresponds to a single commit in the cleaned up history
+       (corresponding basically exactly to `tg patch` output
+       for the topic branch).
+
+       You can use this collapsed structure either for providing
+       a pull source for upstream, or further linearization e.g.
+       for creation of a quilt series using git log:
+
+               git log --pretty=email -p --topo-order origin..exported
+
+       To better understand the function of `tg export`,
+       consider this dependency structure of topic branches:
+
+       origin/master - t/foo/blue - t/foo/red - master
+                    `- t/bar/good <,----------'
+                    `- t/baz      ------------'
+
+       (Where each of the branches may have hefty history.) Then
+
+       master$ tg export for-linus
+
+       will create this commit structure on branch for-linus:
+
+       origin/master - t/foo/blue -. merge - t/foo/red -.. merge - master
+                    `- t/bar/good <,-------------------'/
+                    `- t/baz      ---------------------'
+
+       The command works on the current topic branch
+       and requires one mandatory argument: the name of the branch
+       where the exported result shall be stored.
+       The branch will be silently overwritten if it exists already!
+       Use git reflog to recover in case of mistake.
+
+       Usage: tg export BRANCH
+
+       TODO: Make stripping of non-essential headers configurable
+       TODO: Make stripping of [PATCH] and other prefixes configurable
+       TODO: --quilt and --mbox options for other modes of operation
+
 tg update
 ~~~~~~~~~
        Update the current topic branch wrt. changes in the branches
@@ -306,6 +353,8 @@ mail headers are inserted and the patch itself is appended.
 Thus, as your patches evolve, you can record nuances like whether
 the paricular patch should have To-list/Cc-maintainer or vice
 versa and similar nuances, if your project is into that.
+From is prefilled from your current GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT, other headers
+can be prefilled from various optional topgit.* config options.
 
        .topdeps: Contains the one-per-line list of branches
 your patch depends on, pre-seeded with `tg create`. (Continuously