git push in --tracked branches.

So I created a branch that tracks 'origin' which is remote:

  git checkout -b small_fixes origin

I can do a 'git pull' and everything works as expected. I did some commits in this branch and I issue a 'git push'. To my surprise the 'git push' is still operating on the master and not the current 'small_fixes' branch! What is the rationale behind this ? I would expect to push from my current branch to origin (especially that I am --tracking origin).

  -- aghiles

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 08:02:49PM -0400, Aghiles wrote:

"git push" will by default push matching refs. This has been the behavior since day one. See the description of push.default in "git help config" for other options (I think you want "tracking").

-Peff

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:

Thank you very much. The 'tracking' case is what I need. Could you enlighten me why pushing all matching branches is a sensible default ? It seems like an unusual thing to do.

  -- aghiles

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 09:13:14PM -0400, Aghiles wrote:

I think it comes from a workflow where you tend to have a private repo and then a personal public repo for publishing. The matching refs are then the set of refs that you have previously pushed. So you do:

  $ git push public foo ;# publish "foo" for the first time
  $ git push public ;# now "foo" will be published every time

And you probably do work on topic branches, and only merge them into your public branches when they are ready to show the world. So push is really about synchronizing those public branches.

If you are working by cloning from a collaborative central repository, then that workflow doesn't make as much sense. The refs on the other end are not about "things I have published before" but rather "the set of all refs that our group agrees about". And probably your workflow is to hack on a specific ref, and then push changes to that ref.

Git grew out of the first type of workflow, and that has always been the default. Tools for helping the latter workflow have developed later. There was some discussion about changing the default, but it hurts people used to the current default, so we ended up with the config variable.

That is just my two cents, though. I have largely stayed out of the debates which seem to come up every once in a while. I think this thread is the one that lead to push.default:

  http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/111375

-Peff

Hello Jeff,

Thank you for the explanation. For what it's worth (probably 0) I vote for the default to be 'tracking'.

  -- aghiles