Re: aborted 'git fetch' leaves workspace unusable

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 2, 2014, 18:09 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbnzuqmqe.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <32eeea08963ec4438f97ff9ef6553a75@stephe-leake.org>

stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org writes:

> However, in this case, even running the fetch was a mistake; I would
> have prefered that it leave FETCH_HEAD in its previous state.

I think the clearing of leftover FETCH_HEAD is one of the early things "git fetch" does, unless "--append" is in effect. I haven't looked at the code for a long time, but it may be possible to move the logic of doing so around so that this clearing is done as lazily as possible.

I however suspect that such a change may have fallouts on other people who are writing tools like yours; they may be depending on seeing FETCH_HEAD cleared after a failed fetch, and be surprised to see a stale contents after they (attempt to) run "git fetch" in it.

So it is not so clear if it is a good thing to change the behaviour of "git fetch" not to touch FETCH_HEAD upon a failure.