Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] pull --rebase: add --[no-]autostash flag

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr>
Date: Feb 28, 2016, 10:12 UTC
Message-ID: <vpq37sdnnye.fsf@anie.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To: <CA+DCAeTJ=cTJzVO4ttgMT-Penh1=eVZtPYDQhcF4a4zueYrCAA@mail.gmail.com>

Mehul Jain <mehul.jain2029@gmail.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> If user uses "git pull --[no-]autostash" then two possible things can be done:
>
>            * Either "git pull" ignores "--[no-]autostash" and calls
>              underlying "git merge",
>              as merge stashes the untracked files by itself. Thus
>              ignoring --no-autostash
>              flag given by user.
>
>            * Or "git pull" dies with the following error:
>
>                     "--[no-]autostash is only valid when --rebase is used.
>                      Example: git pull --rebase --[no-]autostash"
>
> I suggest that the latter option should be used in this case as user should know
> that stashing is performed by "git merge" anyway

Not exactly. "git merge" doesn't do a stash, but it accepts to run if local changes do not touch the same files as the merge. So, --autostash is usually not needed for merge.

But I agree that erroring out is better. Silently accepting the option and doing nothing with it would be confusing for users. This would mean that "git pull --autostash" would work, but still sometimes show the error:

  error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:

The situation is different for command-line options and for config variables: the config variable wasn't explicitly specified for each run of "git pull", hence it's acceptable to ignore its value when we have nothing to do with it.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/