Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: Undo a commit

[Daniel Carrera]

Lapo Luchini wrote:
> But using disapprove you actually did not "un-commit", you really wanted
> a commit that had the previous state (again)... so if the previous one
> had "add directory, add file", this one gets "delete file, delete
> directory"... it's correct that way, because that's what the "new
> revision" wants to do over the previous one...
>
> I think the problem is you wanted to do an "un-commit" and that doesn't
> really exist(except, with proper care, "db kill_rev_locally", which does
> exactly that: even restores the workspace state in the same state it was
> before the commit) and what you ended up doing is something really
> different... it's a matter of expectations, IMHO, and not some inherent
> "wrongness" in the "mtn update" behaviour.

I can see the argument about "mtn update". In general, "mtn update" 
means "change the files on this directory to match what is on the DB". 
So I don't blame "mtn update" for changing the files. I think that the 
problem is with "mtn disapprove" and the fact that after I ran mtn 
disapprove I could not run "mtn commit" again to get my changes 
committed the right way.

I'm not sure that I agree that the problem is that there is no un-commit 
with Monotone. I don't object to Monotone recording the fact that I made 
a wrong commit and decided to reverse it. I only object to not being 
able to do the correct commit later. This is how I was expecting "mtn 
disapprove" to work:

mtn commit

## Oops, I commited Foo and Bar but I only meant to commit Foo.

mtn disapprove  ## A commit that says "cancel the last commit".

mtn commit ## THIS time I get only Foo like I originally intended.


I think that this is sensible. "mtn disapprove" changes the DB to note 
the fact that I reversed the last commit and now I can make a new 
commit. In the database, the above would be recorded like this:

* daniel committed Foo an Bar
* daniel reversed the commit of Foo an dBar
* daniel committed Foo


In other words, I don't think "mtn update" did anything wrong, but I 
think that "mtn disapprove" did something wrong by forcing me to run 
"mtn update" for no obvious reason. I don't object to keeping a history 
showing that I committed something and then I changed my mind. And you 
could argue that this is better than altering the history. But I do 
object to losing my work because I a wrong commit cannot be reversed 
without running the destructive "mtn update".


Daniel.