From: Marc Branchaud Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 22:13:40 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] fetch: better alignment in ref summary Message-ID: <57477514.9020800@xiplink.com> In-Reply-To: On 2016-05-26 03:31 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Marc Branchaud writes: > >> The fact that something is buried in some odd part of the ref tree is >> less relevant, IMO. If I'm using custom fetch refspecs or other >> oddities, I'll have that in the back of my head. But what I really >> care about is what ref I can use with commands like log and checkout. >> >> So, regarding Peff's examples: >> >>> $ git fetch origin refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/pr/* >> >> Just show me the "pr/foo" refs. I know where things are coming >> from. Even if I configured that fetch refspec a long time ago, I don't >> need to see the exact mapping every time I fetch. > > That is only because you are used to seeing them. You cannot claim > "I'll remember forever without seeing them" without actually > experiencing not seeing them for a long time. I don't expect (or even want) to forever remember the mapping. It's a matter of context. When fetching, I'm interested in shiny new refs and I want to work with them. When configuring a remote repository, I'm interested in how to bring that repo's refs into my own repository. These are two distinct modes of thought, and I don't think fetch's output always needs to display the latter. Perhaps the --verbose switch could turn on showing how the remote refs get mapped. I can see how that would occasionally be useful for debugging fetch refspecs. >> I think the output should show the plain SHA values, since those are >> the only things the user can use to work with those refs. > > When they tell others how to reproduce what they did (or record what > they did so that they can reproduce it later), they need what it is > called at the remote end. Which is why I included the refnames in my proposal to Peff's second example. Really, the SHA and the remote's name for the SHA are the only meaningful things in this case. > I would hesitate to go in the approach based on discarding > information, as if it is the only way to shorten and clarify the > output. Let's not do so before thinking things through to achieve > the same while keeping the information we give to the users. I agree, this is not something to undertake lightly. But I've yet to be convinced of the utility of always showing the ref mapping during a fetch. I actually found fetch's output quite confusing when I first started using git. It's really not obvious that the thing on the left of the "->" is the remote's local name, especially since to see what was fetched one has to use the thing on the right-hand side -- which is obviously in a remote-specific namespace. (Admittedly, this was before checkout learned to search refs/remotes/ for things to check out.) M.