Re: [PATCH v30 2/2] status: add status.compareBranches config for multiple branch comparisons

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 2, 2026, 23:52 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq1pi1wzzh.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <501bd402944146aa02fb5515783f6745eede28d3.1772102022.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

"Harald Nordgren via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:

Show 42 quoted lines

>  t/t6040-tracking-info.sh         | 310 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 447 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/t/t6040-tracking-info.sh b/t/t6040-tracking-info.sh
> index 0b719bbae6..c24f545036 100755
> --- a/t/t6040-tracking-info.sh
> +++ b/t/t6040-tracking-info.sh
> @@ -292,4 +292,314 @@ test_expect_success '--set-upstream-to @{-1}' '
>  	test_cmp expect actual
>  '
>  
> +test_expect_success 'status tracking origin/main shows only main' '
> +	(
> +		cd test &&
> +		git checkout b4 &&
> +		git status >../actual
> +	) &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch b4
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} by 2 commits.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'
> +
> +test_expect_success 'status --no-ahead-behind tracking origin/main shows only main' '
> +	(
> +		cd test &&
> +		git checkout b4 &&
> +		git status --no-ahead-behind >../actual
> +	) &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch b4
> +	Your branch and ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} refer to different commits.
> +	  (use "git status --ahead-behind" for details)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

The above two uses ( cd test && git $command ) to do what it can do with "git -C test $command", but the rest of the script seems to mostly stick to the latter. Want to be a bit more consistent?

Show 11 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches from upstream has no duplicates' '
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout main &&
> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch main
> +	Your branch is up to date with ${SQ}origin/main${SQ}.
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

We see only one because... @{upstream} and @{push} are both origin/main and we can dedupe and there is no extra advice needed? If @{push} were missing and only @{upstream} existed, we would also see just one, so this test feels a bit under-explained.

Show 6 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches shows ahead of both upstream and push branch' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout -b feature2 origin/main &&
> +	git -C test push origin HEAD &&
> +	(cd test && advance work) &&

One thing the "advance" function does is to call "test_tick" to increment the mock timestamp, but the incremented mock timestamp would not survive beyond the end of a subshell. Not that it matters too much to have commits with the same timestamp in these tests, as long as things are made more reproducible by use of the "advance" function.

Show 12 quoted lines

> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature2
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/feature2${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

Very straight-forward If we ask for @{upstream} and @{push} that resolve to different things, we would see two different reports.

I am curious what should [jc: not asking what the code happens to do; wondering what the sensible behaviour to help users is] happen when the user configures the variable to "@{push} @{upstream} @{push}" in this case. Should we see just two entries (one for @{push}, the other for @{upstream})?

I also am curious what should [jc: ditto] happen when @{upstream} and @{push} point at the same origin/main and our current branch is ahead by 1 commit. The pull side would say "you are ahead of origin/main" and stop wile the push side would say the same thing with advice to push it out for publishing? Or should they get deduped?

Show 12 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'checkout with status.compareBranches shows both branches' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout feature2 >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/feature2${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

If the previous step succeeded, we would be on feature2 branch in the "test" repository, so this checkout is a no-op-only-for-status checkout and we expect to see the same thing as the previous step.

Good.

If the previous step failed, this step may break, but that is what "cd t && sh t6040*.sh -i" is for ;-).

Show 16 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'setup for ahead of tracked but diverged from main' '
> +	(
> +		cd test &&
> +		git checkout -b feature4 origin/main &&
> +		advance work1 &&
> +		git checkout origin/main &&
> +		advance work2 &&
> +		git push origin HEAD:main &&
> +		git checkout feature4 &&
> +		advance work3
> +	)
> +'
> +
> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches shows diverged and ahead' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&

Show 18 quoted lines

> +	git -C test checkout feature4 &&
> +	git -C test branch --set-upstream-to origin/main &&
> +	git -C test push origin HEAD &&
> +	(cd test && advance work) &&
> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature4
> +	Your branch and ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} have diverged,
> +	and have 3 and 1 different commits each, respectively.
> +	  (use "git pull" if you want to integrate the remote branch with yours)
> +
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/feature4${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

Very understandable.

Show 16 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'status --no-ahead-behind with status.compareBranches' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout feature4 &&
> +	git -C test status --no-ahead-behind >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature4
> +	Your branch and ${SQ}origin/main${SQ} refer to different commits.
> +
> +	Your branch and ${SQ}origin/feature4${SQ} refer to different commits.
> +	  (use "git status --ahead-behind" for details)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

OK.

Show 27 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'setup upstream remote' '
> +	(
> +		cd test &&
> +		git remote add upstream ../. &&
> +		git fetch upstream
> +	)
> +'
> +
> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches with upstream and origin remotes' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test remote.pushDefault origin &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout -b feature5 upstream/main &&
> +	git -C test push origin &&
> +	(cd test && advance work) &&
> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature5
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}upstream/main${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/feature5${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

OK. There aren't much essential difference from what we have already seen so far, which dealt with remote tracking branch(es) from a single remote repository. Instead of origin/{main,$feature}, we are now dealing with {upstream,origin}/{main,$feature} but we can only pick one for @{upstream} and one for @{push}, we do not have to worry about all 4 possible permutations.

Show 19 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches supports ordered upstream/push entries' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test remote.pushDefault origin &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{push} @{upstream}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout -b feature6 upstream/main &&
> +	git -C test push origin &&
> +	(cd test && advance work) &&
> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature6
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}origin/feature6${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +	  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
> +
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}upstream/main${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

Ah, I guess this example hints the answer to my earlier "@{push} @{upstream} @{push}" question? The user can control the order of entries shown by tweaking the order they list things on the configuration variable. So we would see the one for @{push} and then another for @{upstream}. We can show the one for @{push} again after these two and claim that it is working as the user told us to, or we can stop showing after showing @{push} and then @{upstream} and claim that we are deduping. Either is fine, but we need to be consistent and we need to have it documented.

Show 21 quoted lines

> +test_expect_success 'status.compareBranches with diverged push branch' '
> +	test_config -C test push.default current &&
> +	test_config -C test remote.pushDefault origin &&
> +	test_config -C test status.compareBranches "@{upstream} @{push}" &&
> +	git -C test checkout -b feature7 upstream/main &&
> +	(cd test && advance work71) &&
> +	git -C test push origin &&
> +	git -C test reset --hard upstream/main &&
> +	(cd test && advance work72) &&
> +	git -C test status >actual &&
> +	cat >expect <<-EOF &&
> +	On branch feature7
> +	Your branch is ahead of ${SQ}upstream/main${SQ} by 1 commit.
> +
> +	Your branch and ${SQ}origin/feature7${SQ} have diverged,
> +	and have 1 and 1 different commits each, respectively.
> +
> +	nothing to commit, working tree clean
> +	EOF
> +	test_cmp expect actual
> +'

The same as before, I guess. Nothing unexpected to see here, or in the rest of the patch.

So td;lr is that the tests in this step mostly look great. It is just the semantics of "dedup" is a bit unclear, without a test that makes it clear (like the "@{push} @{upstream} @{push}" one), and perhaps a bit more documentation how having multiple tokens on the status.compareBranches variable affects the output. A (n easier) half of that additional documentation could be as small as the following, but I didn't attempt to deal with the "dedup" part.

 Documentation/config/status.adoc | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git c/Documentation/config/status.adoc w/Documentation/config/status.adoc
index 15ccd0116b..e2c4a014a4 100644
--- c/Documentation/config/status.adoc
+++ w/Documentation/config/status.adoc
@@ -34,7 +34,8 @@ Example:
 ----
 +
 This would show comparisons against both the configured upstream and push
-tracking branches for the current branch.
+tracking branches for the current branch in this order (as that is how
+upstream and push appear in the value of the variable).
 
 status.displayCommentPrefix::
 	If set to true, linkgit:git-status[1] will insert a comment