Re: [PATCH] push: don't guess at qualifying remote refs on deletion

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 3, 2012, 19:38 UTC
Message-ID: <7vipe4vdnh.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20120703180439.GC3294@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Instead, we can just be more succinct and say "we can't
> delete this because we couldn't find it". So before:
>
>   $ git push origin :bogus
>   error: unable to push to unqualified destination: bogus
>   The destination refspec neither matches an existing ref on the remote nor
>   begins with refs/, and we are unable to guess a prefix based on the source ref.
>   error: failed to push some refs to '$URL'
>
> and now:
>
>   $ git push origin :bogus
>   error: unable to delete 'bogus': remote ref does not exist
>   error: failed to push some refs to '$URL'

This is telling a truth ($GIT_DIR/refs/bogus does not exist) but not the whole truth; while I tend to agree that it is better than the original (especially with ", and we are unable to guess..." part), given that the above request would delete refs/tags/bogus or refs/heads/bogus if they existed on the "origin", I am a bit worried that it may send an incorrect message to novice users.

    unable to delete 'bogus': no branch or tag with that name

might allay my worries, but I am not extremely happy with that wording, either.

Show 6 quoted lines

> I think this would help. I used "remote ref does not exist"
> because that is the simplest explanation for the user.
> However, given that we will try to push a fully qualified
> ref that does not exist, a more accurate message might
> "destination refspec did not match" or something similar.  I
> prefer the former, though, as it less arcane.

Yeah, I do understand why you phrased that way, but still..