Re: [PATCH v2] Fix fetch/pull when run without --update-head-ok

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Oct 14, 2008, 09:49 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0810141145491.22125@pacific.mpi-cbg.de.mpi-cbg.de>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LNX.1.00.0810131546180.19665@iabervon.org>

Hi,

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008, Daniel Barkalow wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > I actually understand now why the tests started failing: the change from 
> > resolve_ref() to get_branch() as requested by Daniel are at fault: 
> > get_branch() does not check if the branch has an initial commit.
> > 
> > I am actually regretting making this change.  Daniel, do you agree 
> > that it might be better to change back to resolve_ref(), so that the 
> > initial complaint (IIRC Han-Wen git pull'ed into a freshly initialized 
> > repository with that utterly bogus "git pull origin master:master" 
> > line) is not re-raised?
> 
> Is it, in fact, okay to fetch into the current branch if it's "yet to be 
> born"? I feel like it shouldn't be, since you'll get exactly the same 
> problem that you would if the branch already existed: the index reflects 
> the previous state (in this case, it's empty), so git will show that 
> you've staged removing all of the files, right? So this would make the 
> check for --update-head-ok more strict than before, but I think the 
> behavior change is correct.

I think http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/31351/focus=31544 is the best link to see what Han-Wen said. Granted, it was a misunderstanding on his part, but there have been quite a few people with the same misunderstanding.

So what they did was

	$ mkdir just-one-branch
	$ cd just-one-branch
	$ git init
	$ git remote add origin <url>
	$ git pull origin master:master

And this _will_ work correctly. Except when using get_branch(NULL) instead of the validating resolve_ref().

When we talk about not breaking existing behavior, we have to talk about this behavior, too.

So, my vote is to revert back to resolve_ref(), even if it needs more lines.

Thoughts of others?

Ciao, Dscho