Re: Friendly refspecs

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 23, 2008, 05:52 UTC
Message-ID: <7v1w4xuni1.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20080423042433.GA3291@mithlond.arda.local>

Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> writes:

Show 21 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano wrote (2008-04-22 13:45 -0700):
>
>> I thought the original poster's example was
>> 
>> 	git push $there $commit:branch2
>> 
>> where $commit happened to be "branch1".  Would we dwim
>> 
>> 	git push $there branch1~4:this_is_known_ok
>> 
>> to refs/heads/?
>
> I guess this is what I meant. My original question was about
> inconsistent user interface: "git push $there branch1" creates branch1
> on the remote side (if it does not exist) but "git push $there
> branch1:branch2" gives an error if branch2 does not exist
> (branch1:refs/heads/branch2 is required).
>
> The case has become much more complicated since, so I just speak aloud
> my hope that need for refs/ paths in common situations would be reduced
> to minimum.

I think everybody involved in this discussion understands _that_. The issue is that you would not have said "branch2" in real life, but used some word that is _not_ "branch" to name the thing, and there is no way for git to guess correctly if you meant to create a branch or a light-weight tag.

There is no inconsistency. "push $branch1" has a special case logic to favor "the same name". You invoked "src:dst" syntax that is general purpose which does not dwim.

Historically we did not favor one way or another for the general purpose syntax. I think Jeff's proposed heuristics to favor branch if a branch tip is pushed and tag if a tag is pushed makes sense.