Re: [PATCH v2] ls-remote: print URL when no repo is specified

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 12, 2010, 05:50 UTC
Message-ID: <7veihh8y8b.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1273598423-3156-1-git-send-email-rctay89@gmail.com>

Tay Ray Chuan <rctay89@gmail.com> writes:

> After 9c00de5 (ls-remote: fall-back to default remotes when no remote
> specified), when no repository is specified, ls-remote may use
> the URL/remote in the config "branch.<name>.remote" or the remote
> "origin"; it may not be immediately obvious to the user which was used.

I cannot convince myself that this is a good change, as I've always thought "ls-remote" output as something people want to let their scripts read and parse. 9c00de5 may have given an enhancement to these scripts in the sense that they can now respond to an empty input from the end user, but this patch forces them to change the way they parse the output from the command.

I also think this patch is solving a wrong problem.

When an end user does not know which remote ls-remote would be talking to by default, what else does he *not* know? Probably which remote "pull" would be fetching from and what branch it would be merging with? Doesn't he have a better command to use to learn that information to reorient himself when he is lost that way?