threads / patch / 37273

patchdoc: format-patch: don't use origin as a branch name

Subject: [PATCH] doc: format-patch: don't use origin as a branch name

## tl;dr

4 messages between Aug 1, 2014 and Aug 1, 2014. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 3people: 3as markdown or json

Philip Oakley· Aug 1, 2014, 19:20 UTC · lore

Historically (5 Nov 2005 v0.99.9-46-g28ffb89) the git-format-patch used 'origin' as the upstream branch name. This is now used to name the remote. Use the more modern 'master' as the branch name.

Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
---

I noticed this while cross-checking details for updating the guide Documentation/(git)everyday.txt -- Philip

 Documentation/git-format-patch.txt | 10 +++++-----
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
Show changes to Documentation/git-format-patch.txt +5 −5
diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
index c0fd470..b0f041f 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
@@ -523,25 +523,25 @@ $ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k
 ------------
 
 * Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
-origin branch:
+master branch:
 +
 ------------
-$ git format-patch origin
+$ git format-patch master
 ------------
 +
 For each commit a separate file is created in the current directory.
 
-* Extract all commits that lead to 'origin' since the inception of the
+* Extract all commits that lead to 'master' since the inception of the
 project:
 +
 ------------
-$ git format-patch --root origin
+$ git format-patch --root master
 ------------
 
 * The same as the previous one:
 +
 ------------
-$ git format-patch -M -B origin
+$ git format-patch -M -B master
 ------------
 +
 Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites

-- 
1.9.4.msysgit.0
Jonathan Nieder· Aug 1, 2014, 19:36 UTC · re: Philip Oakley · lore

Re: [PATCH] doc: format-patch: don't use origin as a branch name

Philip Oakley wrote:
> Historically (5 Nov 2005 v0.99.9-46-g28ffb89) the git-format-patch used
> 'origin' as the upstream branch name. This is now used to name the remote.
> Use the more modern 'master' as the branch name.
Would 'origin/master' make sense?

Thanks, Jonathan

Junio C Hamano· Aug 1, 2014, 20:08 UTC · re: Jonathan Nieder · lore

Re: [PATCH] doc: format-patch: don't use origin as a branch name

Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
Show 7 quoted lines
> Philip Oakley wrote:
>
>> Historically (5 Nov 2005 v0.99.9-46-g28ffb89) the git-format-patch used
>> 'origin' as the upstream branch name. This is now used to name the remote.
>> Use the more modern 'master' as the branch name.
>
> Would 'origin/master' make sense?
It would make a lot more sense than 'master', I think.

The 'origin' will be DWIMmed to whatever the remote designated as its primary branch, i.e. refs/remotes/origin/HEAD, and the assumption the examples in question makes is that the user is following along the simplest workflow to fork from it and upstream her changes. Between 'origin' and 'origin/master', there isn't much difference because of it. In the same spirit of following the simplest workflow, that primary branch is likely to be their 'master', so 'origin/master' is OK but longer than 'origin' [*1*].

On the other hand, 'master' names the local 'master', which may be very stale with respect to 'origin/master', or may have tons of unrelated things that are not in origin/master, some of which may have come from the branch the user is running format-patch to grab patches to upstream. For this reason, changing 'origin' to 'master' is not an improvement at all, I would have to say.

We could further adjust the underlying assumption to more modern "checkout -t -b" era, and use "format-patch @{u}", but I suspect that the readers of these examples are not yet ready for magic before the basics to spell out things more explicitly is covered.

[Footnote]

*1* Also using 'origin' will cover the case when the primary branch at the remote were not named 'master', so in that sense it is slightly better and more generally applicable.

Philip Oakley· Aug 1, 2014, 22:26 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: [PATCH] doc: format-patch: don't use origin as a branch name

From: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>
Show 15 quoted lines
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Philip Oakley wrote:
>>
>>> Historically (5 Nov 2005 v0.99.9-46-g28ffb89) the git-format-patch 
>>> used
>>> 'origin' as the upstream branch name. This is now used to name the 
>>> remote.
>>> Use the more modern 'master' as the branch name.
>>
>> Would 'origin/master' make sense?
>
> It would make a lot more sense than 'master', I think.
>
> The 'origin' will be DWIMmed to whatever the remote designated as

I'd rather not provide an example that requires extra understanding on behalf of the reader on the DWIMing, especially as the example doesn't actually match the guidance in gitrevisions(7) [2].

The synopsis says it should either be a single commit <since>, or a <revision range>, the latter specified via gitrevisions(7), so theirs already an opportunity for confusion, but I take your point.

Show 7 quoted lines
> its primary branch, i.e. refs/remotes/origin/HEAD, and the
> assumption the examples in question makes is that the user is
> following along the simplest workflow to fork from it and upstream
> her changes.  Between 'origin' and 'origin/master', there isn't much
> difference because of it.  In the same spirit of following the
> simplest workflow, that primary branch is likely to be their
> 'master', so 'origin/master' is OK but longer than 'origin' [*1*].

which suggests that maybe the example text should clarify any assumprion like that..

Show 7 quoted lines
>
> On the other hand, 'master' names the local 'master', which may be
> very stale with respect to 'origin/master', or may have tons of
> unrelated things that are not in origin/master, some of which may
> have come from the branch the user is running format-patch to grab
> patches to upstream.  For this reason, changing 'origin' to 'master'
> is not an improvement at all, I would have to say.

I didn't see it that way, my view (presumption?) of the workflow was that the user had a branch 'current' which they had branched from their 'master', thus the updated command felt natural.

Show 5 quoted lines
>
> We could further adjust the underlying assumption to more modern
> "checkout -t -b" era, and use "format-patch @{u}", but I suspect
> that the readers of these examples are not yet ready for magic
> before the basics to spell out things more explicitly is covered.
agreed
Show 8 quoted lines
>
>
> [Footnote]
>
> *1* Also using 'origin' will cover the case when the primary branch
> at the remote were not named 'master', so in that sense it is
> slightly better and more generally applicable.
>

-- Philip [2] the DWIMs listed in the <refname> example of gitrevisions(7), to the niave reader, needs to be ref/ prefixed, which isn't what we'd hope (assuming they ever read it ;-).

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