git-rebase: Clarify usage statement and copy it into the actual docum…

…entation. 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>
gitster · Feb 22, 2006 · 69a60af · 69a60af
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diff --git a/Documentation/git-rebase.txt b/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
@@ -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.
 

diff --git a/git-rebase.sh b/git-rebase.sh
@@ -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
 '