Auto-absorbing Changes

You’ve been tweaking code across several files — fixing a typo in src/auth.rs, adjusting a layout in templates/dashboard.html. Each change was last touched by a different commit. Instead of manually folding each one, let git-loom figure it out:

git loom absorb

For each changed file, absorb splits the diff into hunks, blames each hunk’s original lines to find the originating commit, and folds each hunk into the right place — even when a single file has changes belonging to different commits.

Run a dry run first to see what would happen:

$ git loom absorb -n  # or --dry-run
#   src/auth.rs -> d0 "add login form"
#   templates/dashboard.html -> e1 "add dashboard layout"
#   src/shared.rs [hunk 1/2] -> d0 "add login form"
#   src/shared.rs [hunk 2/2] -- skipped (pure addition)
# Dry run: would absorb 3 hunk(s) from 3 file(s) into 2 commit(s)

When a file has hunks going to different commits, each hunk is absorbed independently. Hunks that can’t be attributed are left in the working tree.

Note

Absorb works by blaming existing lines to find their originating commit. It handles modified and deleted lines well, but newly added lines (insertions that don’t replace existing code) cannot be traced to a commit and will be skipped. Use fold for those.

You can also restrict absorption to specific files:

git loom absorb src/auth.rs

See also: absorb reference