Re: how to check remote git repo for updates without pull/fetch

From: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: Dec 19, 2008, 16:33 UTC
Message-ID: <20081219163300.GT32487@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <494BC89F.9070107@gmail.com>

Ivan Zorin <ivan.a.zorin@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Hello. I have not very hard question, but I don't know how to better do
> it - could you tell me, please, does exist some way to check remote git
> repository for updates without downloading any essential files? I
> suppose, that such command should just type something like: "already
> updated", if current working tree identical to remote repo, and
> something like "there is some updates in remote repo", if remote repo
> has some new commits and/or branches. Thanks.

There aren't any commands to do it.

What you could do is write a script based upon git ls-remote. A really simple one might be:

	#!/bin/sh
	remote=$1
	o=.git/remote_cache.$remote
	n=$o.new$$
	git ls-remote $remote >$n
	if [ -f $o ]
	then
		if diff $o $n >/dev/null
		then
			echo "No changes"
		else
			mv $n $o
			echo "Updates available"
	else
		mv $n $o
		echo "New remote remembered..."
	fi

A much more complex one would actually rewrite refs/heads/ to the correct refs/remotes/ namespace on your local repository and compare the remote ref values to the local refs/remotes values.

Patches for git fetch --pretend or something might be interesting. Though I recall a thread about this before on the MLand saying there was no point. Its not like you can see how big the download would be until after its over.

-- 
Shawn.