Re: Git-pull Documentation

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 13, 2019, 22:43 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqsgwr9ung.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALZbgSSzpd7bDWE1iyfqAsv9oovsSK22oReDiPGG-Td5D2qgaA@mail.gmail.com>

Maris Razvan <razvan.alex.maris@gmail.com> writes:

> I checked and the current behaviour of "git pull <remote> <branch>" is
> to update the remote-tracking branch if required, because, as I have
> seen in the code, it just calls "git fetch".

The thing is, "git fetch origin next" did *NOT* update remote-tracking branch refs/remotes/origin/next for a long time, until f2690487 ("fetch: opportunistically update tracking refs", 2013-05-11) happend.

The series did not update the documentation all that much, which was why you are seeing neither "git fetch" nor "git pull" documented to perform this "opportunistic update of tracking refs". The only change the topic with f2690487 brought in to the Documentation was the attached bit.

Documentation updates to both pull and fetch are very much welcomed.

Thanks.

$ git diff --stat -p 67b57a90f4 db400949b31a Documentation/
 Documentation/pull-fetch-param.txt | 11 ++++++++---
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/pull-fetch-param.txt b/Documentation/pull-fetch-param.txt
index 94a9d32f1d..18cffc25b8 100644
--- a/Documentation/pull-fetch-param.txt
+++ b/Documentation/pull-fetch-param.txt
@@ -68,6 +68,11 @@ Some short-cut notations are also supported.
 +
 * `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`;
   it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
-* A parameter <ref> without a colon is equivalent to
-  <ref>: when pulling/fetching, so it merges <ref> into the current
-  branch without storing the remote branch anywhere locally
+ifndef::git-pull[]
+* A parameter <ref> without a colon fetches that ref into FETCH_HEAD,
+endif::git-pull[]
+ifdef::git-pull[]
+* A parameter <ref> without a colon merges <ref> into the current
+  branch,
+endif::git-pull[]
+  and updates the remote-tracking branches (if any).