Re: [PATCH] fetch: add --no-update-remote-refs

From: Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 21, 2020, 00:57 UTC
Message-ID: <4e444a99-6785-1d11-d8cf-87903c3b3760@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20200117192016.GB11358@coredump.intra.peff.net>

On 1/17/2020 2:20 PM, Jeff King wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 03:28:59PM +0000, Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget wrote:
>> Add a --[no-]update-remote-refs option to 'git fetch' which defaults
>> to the existing behavior of updating the remote refs. This allows
>> a user to run
>>
>>   git fetch <remote> --no-update-remote-refs +refs/heads/*:refs/hidden/*
>>
>> to populate a custom ref space and download a pack of the new
>> reachable objects. This kind of call allows a few things to happen:
> But I think there's already a way to do that: the --refmap option added
> by c5558f80c3 (fetch: allow explicit --refmap to override configuration,
> 2014-05-29). Using an empty refmap like:
> 
>   git fetch --refmap= <remote> refs/heads/*:refs/hidden/*
> 
> should do what you want. It suppresses the use of the configured
> refspecs, so we don't find any opportunistic mappings to make.

You're absolutely right. There are details at [1].

The tricky thing is that the documentation makes it look like you need a value there, and if you supply a value without a refspec argument, an error is given:

$ git fetch origin --refmap="+refs/heads/*:refs/hidden/origin/*" fatal: --refmap option is only meaningful with command-line refspec(s).

I think I'll follow up with a documentation patch to point out that an empty --refmap value will ignore the configured refspec and rely only on the provided refspec argument.

Thanks! -Stolee

[1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-fetch#_configured_remote_tracking_branches_a_id_crtb_a