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

From: Tay Ray Chuan <rctay89@gmail.com>
Date: May 14, 2010, 03:07 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTinxm8hwX53LE9_7rDPoKs9UnGAyFFfVcoh-WGxE@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7veihh8y8b.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Hi,

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> 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.

in this patch, the remote url is printed to stderr, instead of stdout, so existing scripts should be safe.

Show 7 quoted lines

> 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?

I'm not sure if there's a command to determine the remote - I'd be interested to know it, if there's one.

That aside, I believe this patch as an attempt at improving usability.

Compare (pre-patch):

  $ git ls-remote
  (scratch head)
  $ git-x # to determine which remote we listed refs from

with (post-patch):

  $ git ls-remote

The advantage is minor, but I feel there's some added convenience.

-- 
Cheers,
Ray Chuan