Re: Default remote branch for local branch

On Sunday 02 April 2006 23:40, you wrote:

quoted

Let me try to understand this: the general idea is that

  pull.origin = [<refspec> of] <remote> for <branch>

specifies the default action of git-pull if we are on <branch>, ie.
a "git pull" then runs "git pull <remote> [<refspec>]".

Not quite.

It will be (if this were a serious proposal -- I am not
absolutely convinced this is a good idea) more like "git fetch
<remote>" followed by "git-merge HEAD the-refspec-named-there".

So it is not really a <refspec>, but a <localbranch> which has to
appear in the .git/remotes file on the right side of a refspec on
a Pull line.
Then, I think it is redundant to specify the <remote>, as
this can be detected by looking at the .git/remotes files and
searching for <localbranch>.

quoted

So the example above, if .git/remotes/linus would contain two
refspecs, and you are on the branch of the 2nd refspec, it would
do the wrong thing: merge the 1st refspec with current branch.

Sorry I fail to visualize this part.

All I wanted to remark is, that, with

 URL: <remote-URL>
 Pull: refs/head/master:refs/head/remote1
 Pull: refs/head/other:refs/head/remote2

the config

 pull.origin = <remote> for refs/head/my-devel-for-remote2

which does not use the [<refspec> of] part, always is bogus:
We get remote1 merged into my-devel-for-remote2 on a git-pull,
which is not what we want.

quoted

It is also useful to specify this relation if the upstream is purely a
local branch, e.g. when branching off a local branch, and you want to
pull in changes from the local upstream.

Interesting.

You would need sanity checker for $GIT_DIR/remotes/* files if
you do this to make sure no local tracking branch is by mistake
configured to track two remote branches,

Why should this always be a mistake? If you have two developers
doing topic branches for you, you could use this type of config
to make "git-pull" fetching both remotes, and creating an
octopus merge.

And for your "next", you could use this to make "git-pull" merge
both from the stable branch and all topics.

which is a good change, 

The sanity checker probably should be put into a branch attribute
editor which allows to add the config discussed here. And it
should only print a warning when you are trying to add multiple
upstreams.

but then:

	git-pull, without parameter, would:

        (1) check if this branch has any local branch it usually
            merges from; if not, do whatever we traditionally
            did (or barf).

Yes. This is simply looking up the config.
We could automatically add such a config when branching off to
specify the upstream of a branch.
And git-clone should set this, too, and: We get rid of the current
"origin" hardcoded special handling.

Optionally, branching <new> off from <old> could add <new> as
topic branch of <old>: Thus, if you are on <old> and do git-pull,
you get <new> merged in.

        (2) if there is a local branch it merges from, check if
            it is a tracking branch for a remote, by looking at
            remotes/* files.  It would be nice if we could
            detect tracking branches fed from external svn/cvs
            repositories via svn/cvs-import this way at this
            time.

Good idea. I suppose this needs an entry in .git/remotes like

 URL: ...
 Type: SVN 

            If not, skip the next step and go directly to 
            (4).

        (3) run git-fetch (or svn/cvs-import) to update the
            tracking branch;

If (1) found multiple branches, do (2)/(3) for every branch.

        (4) merge from that other local branch.

Or for multiple, do an octopus.

A bigger thing is that I am trying to avoid _requiring_ tracking
branches.

I don't think you force anything when you add functionality to git-pull
for the config discussed here. Nobody *has* to use this config - it's
a porcelain thingie.

Cogito could use this, too. AFAIK, it has the same origin/master hardcoded
tracking behavior.

If you are not micromanaging your subsystem 
maintainers, you should not have to care where they were the
last time you pulled from them.  You should be able to just
pull, examine what the merge brings in, and decide it is worth
merging.  If it isn't, do a "reset", tell them "not good, please
rework and let me know when you are ready," and forget about it.

If we are going require tracking branches,

I do not understand. Why should we require this?

we could do a bit 
more with them, like remembering where the tip was when we
fetched the last time (or the time before that...) and diff with
that, but the tracking branch heads are not set up to do things
like that right now -- they are single pointers.

quoted

quoted

Perhaps you are missing a remotes editor command?

Perhaps.  Also perhaps a remotes/ sanity checker.
Something like this:
...

Doing this as part of git-branch sounds good.

Josef