threads / discuss / 21272

git push should automatically push to remote tracking branch

Subject: git push should automatically push to remote tracking branch

## tl;dr

4 messages between Oct 18, 2009 and Oct 19, 2009.

replies: 3people: 3as markdown or json

Mohit Aron· Oct 18, 2009, 20:20 UTC · lore

Hello,

I've been using git for around a year now and I'm continuing to find the 'git push' API rather cumbersome. My workflow is as follows. I typically have a local branch track a remote branch and want to pull and push changes back and forth. The names of the local and remote branches are different. Even so, while 'git pull' is enough to pull changes, 'git push' is not. Instead, the pull requires a full refspec to be specified which gets real cumbersome and error prone.

Say my local branch name is foo and it is tracking a remote release branch of a product. Say the remote's name is origin and corresponding branch there is 6.1. 'git pull' nicely fetches and merges changes submitted by others in the remote branch to my branch foo. However, to do a push, I need to call:

      git push origin HEAD:6.1

Since my local branch has been setup to track the remote branch, I shouldn't have to specify all this in the 'git push' command. It'll be great if 'git push' were to support a variant that automatically allows pushing to the remotely tracked branch. This is the typical workflow with other version control systems too.

If anyone knows a simpler alternative I can use in Git, please let me know. Otherwise, it'll be great if such a feature could be added to Git in the future.

- Mohit

Tomas Carnecky· Oct 18, 2009, 23:11 UTC · re: Mohit Aron · lore

Re: git push should automatically push to remote tracking branch

On Oct 18, 2009, at 10:20 PM, Mohit Aron wrote:

Show 27 quoted lines

> Hello,
>
> I've been using git for around a year now and I'm continuing to find
> the 'git push' API rather cumbersome. My workflow is as follows. I
> typically have a local branch track a remote branch and want to pull
> and push changes back and forth. The names of the local and remote
> branches are different. Even so, while 'git pull' is enough to pull
> changes, 'git push' is not. Instead, the pull requires a full refspec
> to be specified which gets real cumbersome and error prone.
>
> Say my local branch name is foo and it is tracking a remote release
> branch of a product. Say the remote's name is origin and corresponding
> branch there is 6.1. 'git pull' nicely fetches and merges changes
> submitted by others in the remote branch to my branch foo. However, to
> do a push, I need to call:
>
>       git push origin HEAD:6.1
>
> Since my local branch has been setup to track the remote branch, I
> shouldn't have to specify all this in the 'git push' command. It'll be
> great if 'git push' were to support a variant that automatically
> allows pushing to the remotely tracked branch. This is the typical
> workflow with other version control systems too.
>
> If anyone knows a simpler alternative I can use in Git, please let me
> know. Otherwise, it'll be great if such a feature could be added to
> Git in the future.

$ git config push.default tracking

tom

Mohit Aron· Oct 19, 2009, 03:50 UTC · re: Tomas Carnecky · lore

Re: git push should automatically push to remote tracking branch

Thanks - I suppose this is a new config option. I'm running Git version 1.6.0.4 (the latest with Ubuntu Jaunty) and that doesn't seem to have this option.

- Mohit

Show 6 quoted lines

>
> $ git config push.default tracking
>
> tom
>
>

Jeff King· Oct 19, 2009, 05:06 UTC · re: Mohit Aron · lore

Re: git push should automatically push to remote tracking branch

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 08:50:57PM -0700, Mohit Aron wrote:

> Thanks - I suppose this is a new config option. I'm running Git
> version 1.6.0.4 (the latest with Ubuntu Jaunty) and that doesn't seem
> to have this option.

Yes, it was added in v1.6.3.

-Peff