# howto handle name clashes 6 messages from 2012-03-23 to 2012-03-24. Participants: Sven Strickroth, Jeff King, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/30035 ## Sven Strickroth, 2012-03-23 13:06 Subject: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <4F6C7539.3080607@tu-clausthal.de> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4F6C7539.3080607%40tu-clausthal.de ``` Hi, how to handle name clashes for branches and tags? Is there anything I can add to the refspec to make the name unique? E.g. - for merging "git merge --no-ff refs/branches/test" works, but generates a not so nice default merge message. ("merged commit refs/branches/test" instead of "merged branch test") - how to drop a remote tag/branch ("git push origin :test" does not work) -- Best regards, Sven Strickroth ClamAV, a GPL anti-virus toolkit http://www.clamav.net PGP key id F5A9D4C4 @ any key-server ``` ## Jeff King, 2012-03-23 17:12 Subject: Re: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <20120323171219.GB12881@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20120323171219.GB12881%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: <4F6C7539.3080607@tu-clausthal.de> ``` On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 02:06:01PM +0100, Sven Strickroth wrote: > how to handle name clashes for branches and tags? Is there anything I > can add to the refspec to make the name unique? You can always use a more fully-qualified name to disambiguate (e.g., "tags/foo", or "refs/tags/foo"). > - for merging "git merge --no-ff refs/branches/test" works, but > generates a not so nice default merge message. ("merged commit > refs/branches/test" instead of "merged branch test") Did you mean "refs/heads/test"? I would have thought we would full-qualify the refname first, and then use that to determine the message. Doing a simple test, it looks like "git merge foo" gets you "Merge branch 'foo'", but "git merge heads/foo" will get you "Merge branch 'heads/foo'". We should be able to do better in the latter case. > - how to drop a remote tag/branch ("git push origin :test" does not work) Does "git push origin :heads/foo" (or :tags/foo) not work? -Peff ``` ## Sven Strickroth, 2012-03-23 17:43 Subject: Re: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <4F6CB649.8080006@tu-clausthal.de> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4F6CB649.8080006%40tu-clausthal.de In-Reply-To: <20120323171219.GB12881@sigill.intra.peff.net> ``` Am 23.03.2012 18:12 schrieb Jeff King: >> - for merging "git merge --no-ff refs/branches/test" works, but >> generates a not so nice default merge message. ("merged commit >> refs/branches/test" instead of "merged branch test") > > Did you mean "refs/heads/test"? yes. Your example was the correct one. Thanks for spotting my problem. >> - how to drop a remote tag/branch ("git push origin :test" does not work) > > Does "git push origin :heads/foo" (or :tags/foo) not work? seems to work. Thanks. Really problematic is checkout: "git checkout heads/foo" creates a detached HEAD (is this intended). However, "git checkout heads/foo -B foo" can be used. Is there a git command to find out if a name is ambiguous? "git rev-parse foo" outputs "warning: refname 'test' is ambiguous.", but the return code is zero. -- Best regards, Sven Strickroth ClamAV, a GPL anti-virus toolkit http://www.clamav.net PGP key id F5A9D4C4 @ any key-server ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2012-03-23 18:25 Subject: Re: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <7vlimrtbrg.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vlimrtbrg.fsf%40alter.siamese.dyndns.org In-Reply-To: <4F6C7539.3080607@tu-clausthal.de> ``` Sven Strickroth writes: > how to handle name clashes for branches and tags? Is there anything I > can add to the refspec to make the name unique? > > E.g. > - for merging "git merge --no-ff refs/branches/test" works, but > generates a not so nice default merge message. ("merged commit > refs/branches/test" instead of "merged branch test") That's the price you pay for naming different things the same and having to disambiguate it. > - how to drop a remote tag/branch ("git push origin :test" does not work) "git push origin :refs/tags/test" It is sad that some people teach new people shorthand without telling them that what they are teaching are merely shorthand and cause confusion like this. ``` ## Jeff King, 2012-03-23 18:29 Subject: Re: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <20120323182941.GA14236@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20120323182941.GA14236%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: <4F6CB649.8080006@tu-clausthal.de> ``` On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 06:43:37PM +0100, Sven Strickroth wrote: > Really problematic is checkout: > "git checkout heads/foo" creates a detached HEAD (is this intended). > However, "git checkout heads/foo -B foo" can be used. Checkout is unlike regular ref lookup in that it prefers branches to other forms (because it is fundamentally a branch operation). So "git checkout foo" should always choose "refs/heads/foo". We do still seem to give the ambiguity warning, though, which seems like overkill. I think that generally people would want to get rid of ambiguous refs as soon as they notice them, as they are a recipe for disaster. So the warning being annoying has not been considered a huge problem. > Is there a git command to find out if a name is ambiguous? > "git rev-parse foo" outputs "warning: refname 'test' is ambiguous.", but > the return code is zero. I think you could do: case "$(git show-ref --tags --heads $name | wc -l)" in 0) echo "$name does not exist" ;; 1) echo "$name is unambiguous" ;; *) echo "$name is ambiguous" ;; esac You could also get a list of all ambiguous refs like this: git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)' refs/heads refs/tags | egrep '^(heads|tags)' The ":short" modifier will shorten names unambiguously, so it ends up leaving the "heads" and "tags" in for ambiguous names. -Peff ``` ## Sven Strickroth, 2012-03-24 00:19 Subject: Re: howto handle name clashes Message-ID: <4F6D132F.6020504@tu-clausthal.de> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4F6D132F.6020504%40tu-clausthal.de In-Reply-To: <20120323171219.GB12881@sigill.intra.peff.net> ``` Am 23.03.2012 18:12 schrieb Jeff King: >> - how to drop a remote tag/branch ("git push origin :test" does not >> work) > > Does "git push origin :heads/foo" (or :tags/foo) not work? well, ":heads/foo" does not work. Imagine I want to drop a remote branch which is ambiguous (e.g. a tag with same name exists) on the repository: "git push origin :food" gives me: "error: dst refspec food matches more than one." However, deleting the remote tag (:tags/foo) works with your suggestion. "git push origin :refs/remotes/origin/foo" showed success (and warning "remote: warning: Allowing deletion of corrupt ref."), but did not work. -- Best regards, Sven Strickroth ClamAV, a GPL anti-virus toolkit http://www.clamav.net PGP key id F5A9D4C4 @ any key-server ```