[PATCH 5/8] push doc: correct lies about how push refspecs work

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 29, 2018, 20:20 UTC
Message-ID: <20180429202100.32353-6-avarab@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20180429202100.32353-1-avarab@gmail.com>

There's complex rules governing whether a push is allowed to take place depending on whether we're pushing to refs/heads/*, refs/tags/* or refs/not-that/*. See is_branch() in refs.c, and the various assertions in refs/files-backend.c. (e.g. "trying to write non-commit object %s to branch '%s'").

This documentation has never been quite correct, but went downhill after dbfeddb12e ("push: require force for refs under refs/tags/", 2012-11-29) when we started claiming that <dst> couldn't be a tag object, which is incorrect. After some of the logic in that patch was changed in 256b9d70a4 ("push: fix "refs/tags/ hierarchy cannot be updated without --force"", 2013-01-16) the docs weren't updated, and we've had some version of documentation that confused whether <src> was a tag or not with whether <dst> would accept either an annotated tag object or the commit it points to.

This makes the intro somewhat more verbose & complex, perhaps we should have a shorter description here and split the full complexity into a dedicated section. Very few users will find themselves needing to e.g. push blobs or trees to refs/custom-namespace/* (or blobs or trees at all), and that could be covered separately as an advanced topic.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/git-push.txt     | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 Documentation/gitrevisions.txt |  7 ++++---
 2 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-push.txt b/Documentation/git-push.txt
index 5b08302fc2..806c3d8c65 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-push.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-push.txt
@@ -60,8 +60,10 @@ OPTIONS[[OPTIONS]]
 	by a colon `:`, followed by the destination ref <dst>.
 +
 The <src> is often the name of the branch you would want to push, but
-it can be any arbitrary "SHA-1 expression", such as `master~4` or
-`HEAD` (see linkgit:gitrevisions[7]).
+it can be any arbitrary "SHA-1 expression" referring to a branch, such
+as `master~4` or `HEAD` (see linkgit:gitrevisions[7]). It can also
+refer to tag objects, trees or blobs if the <dst> is outside of
+`refs/heads/*`.
 +
 The <dst> tells which ref on the remote side is updated with this
 push. Arbitrary expressions cannot be used here, an actual ref must
@@ -74,12 +76,24 @@ without any `<refspec>` on the command line.  Otherwise, missing
 `:<dst>` means to update the same ref as the `<src>`.
 +
 The object referenced by <src> is used to update the <dst> reference
-on the remote side.  By default this is only allowed if <dst> is not
-a tag (annotated or lightweight), and then only if it can fast-forward
-<dst>.  By having the optional leading `+`, you can tell Git to update
-the <dst> ref even if it is not allowed by default (e.g., it is not a
-fast-forward.)  This does *not* attempt to merge <src> into <dst>.  See
-EXAMPLES below for details.
+on the remote side. Whether this is allowed depends on what where in
+`refs/*` the <dst> reference lives. The `refs/heads/*` namespace will
+only accept commit objects, and then only they can be
+fast-forwarded. The `refs/tags/*` namespace will accept any kind of
+object, but there commit objects are known as lightweight tags, and
+any changes to them and others types of objects will be
+rejected. Finally and most confusingly, it's possible to push any type
+of object to any namespace outside of `refs/{tags,heads}/*`, but these
+will be treated as branches, even in the case where a tag object is
+pushed. That tag object will be overwritten by another tag object (or
+commit!) without `--force` if the new tag happens to point to a commit
+that's a fast-forward of the commit it replaces.
++
+By having the optional leading `+`, you can tell Git to update the
+<dst> ref even if it is not allowed by its respective namespace
+clobbering rules (e.g., it is not a fast-forward. in the case of
+`refs/heads/*` updates) This does *not* attempt to merge <src> into
+<dst>.  See EXAMPLES below for details.
 +
 `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`.
 +
diff --git a/Documentation/gitrevisions.txt b/Documentation/gitrevisions.txt
index 27dec5b91d..1b79cf1634 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitrevisions.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitrevisions.txt
@@ -19,9 +19,10 @@ walk the revision graph (such as linkgit:git-log[1]), all commits which are
 reachable from that commit. For commands that walk the revision graph one can
 also specify a range of revisions explicitly.
 
-In addition, some Git commands (such as linkgit:git-show[1]) also take
-revision parameters which denote other objects than commits, e.g. blobs
-("files") or trees ("directories of files").
+In addition, some Git commands (such as linkgit:git-show[1] and
+linkgit:git-push[1]) can also take revision parameters which denote
+other objects than commits, e.g. blobs ("files") or trees
+("directories of files").
 
 include::revisions.txt[]

-- 
2.17.0.290.gded63e768a