Re: [PATCH] pull: refuse complete src:dst fetchspec arguments

From: Sean Estabrooks <seanlkml@sympatico.ca>
Date: Oct 21, 2009, 01:35 UTC
Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP37B36AD1D1000A723B9EBDAEBF0@phx.gbl>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LNX.2.00.0910202044150.14365@iabervon.org>

On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:55:25 -0400 (EDT) Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> > Maybe, but it could also just be to create a temp local branch for
> > merging into additional branches afterward with "checkout other;
> > merge temp".   This is especially helpful when pulling from an
> > annoyingly long URL instead of from a configured remote.
> 
> Maybe it should be fine to do:
> 
> $ git fetch long-url-here master:temp
> $ git merge temp
> $ git checkout other-branch-that-also-needs-it
> $ git merge temp
> 
> But "temp" is "refs/remotes/temp", not "refs/heads/temp"?

Well that's only one example of possibile uses for fetching directly to
a local branch, perhaps as a new base of further development.  Is there
really a compelling reason to force someone to fetch into refs/remotes
and then do the extra step of checking it out locally?

> I think, actually, that creating or changing a local branch is really not 
> what "fetch" (or the fetch part of pull) is about. I think that just leads 
> to confusion about what's locally-controlled and what's a local memory of 
> something remotely-controlled.

Well it's a handy shortcut for several situations. There must be a way to protect less adroit Git users without removing functionality.

Sean