Re: bad git pull

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Dec 15, 2005, 23:53 UTC
Message-ID: <7vu0d9lxx9.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vzmn2kjw1.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Don Zickus <dzickus@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I notice if I create a branch (and switch to it) in the linux kernel
>> off of say version 2.6.14, then later do a git pull, things get ugly. 
>> It seems like all the upstream changes are being merged into the
>> 2.6.14 branch (instead of the latest kernel tag).
>>
>> Is this a user error because the tool is still fragile?
>
> I do not understand the question.
>
> The user wanted all the good developments from the mainline into
> the fork he created starting at 2.6.14, and the tool did what
> was asked.  Why would you want to forbid that from happening,
> and what did you want to happen instead?

Actually I think I do understand the question. You have a clone of linux-2.6 repository, and your "origin" branch tracks the bleeding edge from Linus. You also have "myhack" branch that was forked off from 2.6.14, and wanted to see what new things Linus has by updating "origin", and perhaps merge those changes into your "master" which keeps track of your hacks based on Linus tip, but unfortunately you were on "myhack" branch.

Ouch.

So what you wanted to do was probably:

	$ git fetch ;# this updates "origin" to Linus tip

instead of

	$ git pull ;# this updates "origin" to Linus tip *and*
                    # merges that into the current branch

As you may probably know, you can recover by

	$ git reset --hard

While I am sympathetic, this "Oops, I said pull when I meant fetch" sounds remotely similar to "oops, I said 'rm -r' when I meant to say 'ls -r'". Is it that the tool is too fragile?