Workflows, rebase, patch theory

[Andrew Bennetts]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Ben Finney writes:
> 
>  > My understanding is this: The state of the tree to which a revision
>  > was applied is a fact of history that gets "thrown away" by rebase.
>  > 
>  > Is that wrong?
> 
> Absolutely!  Both the tree object and the commit that refers to it are
> in the repository, accessible via their SHA1s and any other tags or
> branches that refer to the commit object.  States *and history* are
> preserved.  Only the reference via the rebased branch name is not.
> 
> If there are no references[1] left, then objects including tree states
> and commit history *can* be garbage-collected.  But that only happens
> if the user insists.

“Set aside” or “ignored” are perhaps more accurate terms than “thrown away”.