Re: [PATCH 04/13] Use "git merge" instead of "git pull ."

From: Martin von Zweigbergk <martinvonz@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 25, 2013, 05:26 UTC
Message-ID: <CANiSa6iQKgwbc7bD5+V0XZdqOf=6OvyxO3zay3v87vB3UTLivQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20130825041912.GD2882@elie.Belkin>

On Sat, Aug 24, 2013 at 9:19 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

> Thomas Ackermann wrote:
>> --- a/Documentation/user-manual.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/user-manual.txt
>> @@ -1784,17 +1784,6 @@ repository that you pulled from.
>>  <<fast-forwards,fast-forward>>; instead, your branch will just be
>>  updated to point to the latest commit from the upstream branch.)
>>
>> -The `git pull` command can also be given `.` as the "remote" repository,
>> -in which case it just merges in a branch from the current repository; so
>> -the commands
>> -
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> -$ git pull . branch
>> -$ git merge branch
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> -are roughly equivalent.  The former is actually very commonly used.
>> -
>
> I wonder if it would make sense to say they simply *are* equivalent.
> I.e., what differences are there between those two commands, and could
> "git pull" be tweaked to eliminate them?

One difference is that "git pull" can be configured to rebase.

> [...]
>> @@ -2259,7 +2248,7 @@ When you are happy with the state of this change, you can pull it into the
>>  "test" branch in preparation to make it public:

I realize that "pull" here is not necessarily about the command, but perhaps it would still make sense to change it?