Re: [PATCH/RFC 4/6] transport: add refspec list parameters to functions

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 18, 2016, 18:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqa8kq69i5.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <1460747949-3514-5-git-send-email-dturner@twopensource.com>

David Turner <dturner@twopensource.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Add parameters for a list of refspecs to transport_get_remote_refs and
> get_refs_list.  These parameters are presently unused -- soon, we will
> use them to implement fetches which only learn about a subset of refs.
>
> Signed-off-by: David Turner <dturner@twopensource.com>
> ---

What the code tries to do I am more than halfway happy.  It is
unfortunate that we cannot do this natively without upgrading the
protocol in a fundamental way, but this is a nice way to work it
around only for Git-over-HTTP transport without having to break the
protocol.
 
As a POC it is OK, but I am moderately unhappy with the use of
"refspec" here.

At the transport layer, we shouldn't care what the receiving end intends to do with the objects that sits at the tip of the refs at the other end, so sending "refspecs" down feels somewhat wrong for this feature. At one layer up in the next patch, you do use "interesting refs" which makes it clear that only the left-hand-side of a refspec, i.e. what they call it, matters, and I think that is a much better phrasing of the concept (and the passed data should only be the left-hand-side of refspecs).

Thanks.