# git branch --editdescription fatal error

6 messages from 2017-01-06 to 2017-01-06. Participants: Jake Lambert, Stefan Beller, Ralf Thielow, Jeff King.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/44826

## Jake Lambert, 2017-01-06 17:25

Subject: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <MWHPR19MB11357994E6C43DBCC0931CD7BC630@MWHPR19MB1135.namprd19.prod.outlook.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/MWHPR19MB11357994E6C43DBCC0931CD7BC630%40MWHPR19MB1135.namprd19.prod.outlook.com

```
Hello,

When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place. I am not too familiar with the inner workings of git, but if you accept pull requests, I'm happy to give it a shot if you can give me directions as to how to submit one to you.

While I have you, I would also like to make a feature request for branch descriptions to (optionally) be included in the output of git branch <noargs> (or something like git branch --descriptions). This is particularly helpful where branch names match JIRA tickets numbers or are simply so old I don't remember what they are but don't want to delete them just in case.

Thank you for maintaining this absolutely wonderful program, and have a happy New Year!

Best,
Jake
     
 Jake Lambert
 Full Stack Developer
 
 
 The Company On A Hill
 www.onahill.co
    
```

## Stefan Beller, 2017-01-06 17:55

Subject: Re: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kaz_hS9P7vqV9EhZazM_g0OUdRfMtFPJ7gFu-h-ku=NKw@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAGZ79kaz_hS9P7vqV9EhZazM_g0OUdRfMtFPJ7gFu-h-ku%3DNKw%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <MWHPR19MB11357994E6C43DBCC0931CD7BC630@MWHPR19MB1135.namprd19.prod.outlook.com>

```
On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Jake Lambert <jake@onahill.co> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place.

That seems strange. Is it possible that your config is not writable?
(.git/config, ~/gitconfig, you'd need to find out where the <branch>
is configured already via git config --global/--system/--local --list)

> I am not too familiar with the inner workings of git, but if you accept pull requests, I'm happy to give it a shot if you can give me directions as to how to submit one to you.

We rather do email based workflow, see
https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
(We use github only as a host, you could also obtain it from one of
https://git-blame.blogspot.com/p/git-public-repositories.html)

>
> While I have you, I would also like to make a feature request for branch descriptions to (optionally) be included in the output of git branch <noargs> (or something like git branch --descriptions). This is particularly helpful where branch names match JIRA tickets numbers or are simply so old I don't remember what they are but don't want to delete them just in case.

Apparently the branch descriptions are only used for the request-pull
subcommand,
https://github.com/git/git/commit/c0168147831fce00975949213eef3471b7a2b76b
and the merge message
https://github.com/git/git/commit/898eacd8ada2d012f977948350ed60845e238037


If you want to work on both of these issues, have a look at
edit_branch_description
as well as print_ref_list in builtin/branch.c

> Thank you for maintaining this absolutely wonderful program, and have a happy New Year!

Happy new year!
Stefan

```

## Ralf Thielow, 2017-01-06 19:31

Subject: Re: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <CAN0XMO+zzYOXF2gwr=0Tu-7T5BH7f_L+FhfD8RUenDeq3xFHjA@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAN0XMO%2BzzYOXF2gwr%3D0Tu-7T5BH7f_L%2BFhfD8RUenDeq3xFHjA%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kaz_hS9P7vqV9EhZazM_g0OUdRfMtFPJ7gFu-h-ku=NKw@mail.gmail.com>

```
2017-01-06 18:55 GMT+01:00 Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>:
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Jake Lambert <jake@onahill.co> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place.
>
> That seems strange. Is it possible that your config is not writable?
> (.git/config, ~/gitconfig, you'd need to find out where the <branch>
> is configured already via git config --global/--system/--local --list)
>

Have you actually tried to reproduce this issue? I'm on current next
and can reproduce the problem.

It seems Git is not happy with unsetting non-existent configs. And at
least the following piece of code
seems to be there since 10bea152a (Add functions git_config_set() and
git_config_set_multivar(), 2005-11-17).

config.c:2212
/* if nothing to unset, or too many matches, error out */
if ((store.seen == 0 && value == NULL) ||

I wonder why it's an error to remove something that doesn't exist
except the case we 'know' it
exists because of further actions. I don't think this is a thing, though.
Just for the record: `git config --unset branch.$branch.description`
does return with code "5" here as well.

I think removing things that don't exist should behave the same like
removing things that do exist, with
a success.

Ralf

```

## Stefan Beller, 2017-01-06 19:43

Subject: Re: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kZOfHWP_pQGN1QcmR71Ft6ib0aPwNKX80YMT7KcK0_Stg@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAGZ79kZOfHWP_pQGN1QcmR71Ft6ib0aPwNKX80YMT7KcK0_Stg%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <CAN0XMO+zzYOXF2gwr=0Tu-7T5BH7f_L+FhfD8RUenDeq3xFHjA@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 11:31 AM, Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2017-01-06 18:55 GMT+01:00 Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>:
>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Jake Lambert <jake@onahill.co> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place.
>>
>> That seems strange. Is it possible that your config is not writable?
>> (.git/config, ~/gitconfig, you'd need to find out where the <branch>
>> is configured already via git config --global/--system/--local --list)
>>
>
> Have you actually tried to reproduce this issue? I'm on current next
> and can reproduce the problem.

eh, I was on $random_version that I currently have installed
(with messed up submodule code, but otherwise close to master).

this gives hope that a bisect between master..next will give us a culprit?

>
> I think removing things that don't exist should behave the same like
> removing things that do exist, with
> a success.

I am not sure. Consider the tool "rm"

    $ rm no_exist
    rm: cannot remove ‘no_exist’: No such file or directory
    $ echo $?
    1

You have to use the --force.

For this specific use case I agree we should then set the force flag
to let the the removal of the config option succeed no matter if it
existed before.

Stefan

```

## Ralf Thielow, 2017-01-06 20:05

Subject: Re: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <CAN0XMOKzd-nuFaJdOYndexCNWFVWDJKKinc7-Ox19K4sgXF7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAN0XMOKzd-nuFaJdOYndexCNWFVWDJKKinc7-Ox19K4sgXF7YQ%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kZOfHWP_pQGN1QcmR71Ft6ib0aPwNKX80YMT7KcK0_Stg@mail.gmail.com>

```
2017-01-06 20:43 GMT+01:00 Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>:
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 11:31 AM, Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2017-01-06 18:55 GMT+01:00 Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>:
>>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Jake Lambert <jake@onahill.co> wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place.
>>>
>>> That seems strange. Is it possible that your config is not writable?
>>> (.git/config, ~/gitconfig, you'd need to find out where the <branch>
>>> is configured already via git config --global/--system/--local --list)
>>>
>>
>> Have you actually tried to reproduce this issue? I'm on current next
>> and can reproduce the problem.
>
> eh, I was on $random_version that I currently have installed
> (with messed up submodule code, but otherwise close to master).
>
> this gives hope that a bisect between master..next will give us a culprit?
>

Hm.
I can confirm it appears on current master (e05806da9).

>>
>> I think removing things that don't exist should behave the same like
>> removing things that do exist, with
>> a success.
>
> I am not sure. Consider the tool "rm"
>
>     $ rm no_exist
>     rm: cannot remove ‘no_exist’: No such file or directory
>     $ echo $?
>     1
>
> You have to use the --force.
>
> For this specific use case I agree we should then set the force flag
> to let the the removal of the config option succeed no matter if it
> existed before.
>
> Stefan

Can you think of a case where this flag should be set to false?

Ralf

```

## Jeff King, 2017-01-06 20:10

Subject: Re: git branch --editdescription fatal error
Message-ID: <20170106201001.pgxo4rl3d36veezs@sigill.intra.peff.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20170106201001.pgxo4rl3d36veezs%40sigill.intra.peff.net
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kZOfHWP_pQGN1QcmR71Ft6ib0aPwNKX80YMT7KcK0_Stg@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Fri, Jan 06, 2017 at 11:43:52AM -0800, Stefan Beller wrote:

> >>> When executing "git branch <branch> --edit-description" on a branch with no description set, I get "fatal: could not unset 'branch.<branch>.description". It would seem that the unsetting piece should occur only after checking if it was set in the first place.
> >>
> >> That seems strange. Is it possible that your config is not writable?
> >> (.git/config, ~/gitconfig, you'd need to find out where the <branch>
> >> is configured already via git config --global/--system/--local --list)
> >>
> >
> > Have you actually tried to reproduce this issue? I'm on current next
> > and can reproduce the problem.
> 
> eh, I was on $random_version that I currently have installed
> (with messed up submodule code, but otherwise close to master).

Hmm. I can reproduce, but only in one situation: when the new
description is empty. In which case we try to delete the variable. In
other words:

  [this breaks; the file remains empty and we try to delete the
   nonexistent config]
  $ EDITOR=true git branch --edit-description master
  fatal: could not unset 'branch.master.description'

  [this works; we actually set the variable]
  $ EDITOR='echo foo >' git branch --edit-description master
  $ git config branch.master.description
  foo

  [and now the unsetting works; note we have to truncate here, since
   the file will be prepopulated with "foo" from the existing desc]
  $ EDITOR='>' git branch --edit-description master
  $ git config branch.master.description
  [no output]

The history of this behavior is a bit funny.

In old versions of git, we would return a failing exit code of "1" from
git-branch, with no message.

Then in bd25f89014 (branch: die on config error when editing branch
description, 2016-02-22), we actually started returning "0"! This was
because the config code did not propagate errors from its helper
functions in all cases.

That was fixed by 9c14bb08a4 (git_config_set_multivar_in_file: all
non-zero returns are errors, 2016-04-09), giving the behavior we see
today.

So between v2.7.3 and v2.8.3, we did return 0, but I think that was a
bug (we also returned 0 for a lot of other bogus cases, too).

I could see either behavior as reasonable, but I think the right
solution would be for the branch code from bd25f89014 to use the
"gently" function set the variable, and then decide which cases should
be silently ignored, and which propagated as errors.

-Peff

```