Re: git-push branch confusion caused by user mistake

From: Jakub Narębski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 11, 2017, 20:43 UTC
Message-ID: <4a60d43b-b4b2-fb8d-b139-bbbdef564187@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CABURp0pf=4BE=E7qeOmYAcqJb=qDeGJ1EFyfCf+hDtKjjMD=ng@mail.gmail.com>

W dniu 10.03.2017 o 22:44, Phil Hord pisze:

Show 9 quoted lines

> This week a user accidentally did this:
> 
>     $ git push origin origin/master
>     Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
>     To parent.git
>      * [new branch]      origin/master -> origin/master
> 
> He saw his mistake when the "new branch" message appeared, but he was
> confused about how to fix it and worried he broke something.

It is nowadays very easy to delete accidentally created remote branch with

      $ git push origin --delete origin/master

Show 8 quoted lines

> It seems reasonable that git expanded the original args into this one:
> 
>     git push origin refs/remotes/origin/master
> 
> However, since the dest ref was not provided, it was assumed to be the
> same as the source ref, so it worked as if he typed this:
> 
>     git push origin refs/remotes/origin/master:refs/remotes/origin/master

This rule depends on push.default setting, but it is a very simple rule. Simple is good. DWIM is usually not worth it, unless program can guess what you meant, and what you meant is always the same.

Show 7 quoted lines

> I think git should be smarter about deducing the dest ref from the
> source ref if the source ref is in refs/remotes, but I'm not sure how
> far to take it.  It feels like we should translate refspecs something
> like this for push:
> 
>     origin/master
>         => refs/remotes/origin/master:refs/heads/master

[...]

Such push doesn't make sense (unless you have a quite unusual situation).

Note that 'origin/master', that is 'refs/remotes/origin/master' is a remote-tracking branch, that is a ref that is meant to track position of the 'master' branch ('refs/heads/master') in the 'origin' remote. Thus it should always be the same as 'master' in 'origin', or be behind if you didn't fetch.

> Does this seem reasonable?  I can try to work up a patch if so.

Thus I don't think such complication is reasonable.

-- 
Jakub Narębski