Re: [PATCH 4/4] Make git-pull give hints on what to do when there is no branch to merge from

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 18, 2007, 23:00 UTC
Message-ID: <7vsl5btw80.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1190077948.22387.66.camel@cacharro.xalalinux.org>

Federico Mena Quintero <federico@novell.com> writes:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Signed-off-by: Federico Mena Quintero <federico@gnu.org>
> ---
>  git-pull.sh |    6 +++++-
>  1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/git-pull.sh b/git-pull.sh
> index 5e96d1f..7beef4d 100755
> --- a/git-pull.sh
> +++ b/git-pull.sh
> @@ -98,7 +98,11 @@ case "$merge_head" in
>  	curr_branch=${curr_branch#refs/heads/}
>  
>  	echo >&2 "Warning: No merge candidate found because value of config option
> -         \"branch.${curr_branch}.merge\" does not match any remote branch fetched."
> +         \"branch.${curr_branch}.merge\" does not match any remote branch fetched.
> +         This branch is not set up to track any other branches.  Please name which
> +         branch you want to merge from on the command line, or if you almost always
> +         want to merge from the same branch, then set this up with
> +         \"git branch --track\"."

This is a nice attempt, but can you use "git branch --track" to set this? What does the command line look like?

This error can come when branch.<foo>.merge does not match what remote.<bar>.fetch says (where branch.<foo>.remote is <bar>), but it is my understanding that the builtin-fetch work by Daniel and Shawn would fetch branch.<foo>.merge as well to reduce this error. Another possibility is when the user does not have any branch.<foo>.merge.

I am inclined to suggest rewording the message like this, and make this condition an error (i.e. "exit 1"):

    You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you
    want to merge with, and 'branch.${curr_branch}.merge' in
    your configuration file does not tell me either.  Please
    name which branch you want to merge on the command line and
    try again.

    If you often merge with the same branch, you may want to
    configure the following variables in your configuration
    file:

	branch.${curr_branch}.remote = <nickname>
	branch.${curr_branch}.merge = <remote-ref>
        remote.<nickname>.url = <url>
        remote.<nickname>.fetch = <refspec>

    See git-config(1) for details.