Re: [RFC PATCH] Make 'git request-pull' more strict about matching local/remote branches

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jan 22, 2014, 22:20 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+55aFxdNv+Y+OzSazY=yaEGkG57+HsiDCi93tBhvNHarSFyjA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqwqhrwtoy.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:14 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

>
> I looked at 5150.4 and found that what it attempts to do is halfway
> sensible.

I agree that it is "half-way sensible". The important bit being the HALF part.

The half part is why we have the semantics we have. There's no question about that.

The problem is, the *other* half is pure and utter crap. The "half-way sensible" solution then generates pure and utter garbage in the "totally sensible" case.

And that's why I think it needs to be fixed. Not because the existing behavior can never make sense in some circumstances, but because the existing behavior can screw up really really badly in other (arguably more common, and definitely real) circumstances.

For the kernel, the broken "missing branch name" situation has come up pretty regularly. This is definitely not a one-time event, it's more like "almost every merge window somebody gets screwed by this and I have to guess what the branch name should have been".

I think that we could potentially do a "local:remote" syntax for that half-way sensible case, so that if you do

   git push .. master:for-linus

then you have to do

   git request-pull .. master:for-linus

to match the fact that you renamed your local branch on the remote.

              Linus