Re: [git pull] core fixes

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> this is because the merge-base of this tree is 2e532d68a2, while your 
> tree that merges this is fresher.
> 
> I did not want to merge to your latest, to not create an unnecessary 
> merge commit. But i could not find a way either how to generate a proper 
> shortlog either.

Just do

	# update the remote branches
	git fetch linus
	# get the log difference
	git shortlog linus..

because "git log" and friends don't care about the merge base, they only 
care about the actual commit _set_difference_. So "linus.." is shorthand 
for "linus..HEAD", which in turn means "Which commits are in HEAD but not 
in 'linus".

Doing a _diff_ is different, and when you do "git diff linus.." doesn't 
mean a set difference, it means an "endpoint difference", and there you 
need to find the merge base in order to get a sane answer. Of course, then 
the diff won't necessarily be what I see, since common commits will 
disappear. But even there, you can do

	git diff linus...

where the triple dots mean "symmetric set difference" for a log-based (ie 
"set operation") operation, but means "difference from common merge base" 
for an endpoint operation (ie "git diff").

		Linus