Re: [PATCH/RFC 2/3] git-fetch: Split fetch and merge logic

"Santi Béjar" [off-list ref] writes:

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There are two cases where the behaviour is changed:

1) branch.*.merge no longer must exactly match the remote part
   of the branch fetched. Both are expanded in full (as refs/heads/...)
   and matched afterwards.

...

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 I see this as a regression.
If you are setting configuration, wouldn't you rather see the
behaviour consistent even when remote adds new refs?

Maybe I misread your description, but I took it to mean that you
are allowing:

	branch.master.merge = a

to mean what we traditionally spelled

	branch.master.merge = refs/heads/a

and guessed (I haven't looked for where it happens in the code)
the way you do that conversion is by tail-matching the ref; if
the other end creates "refs/heads/b/a", suddenly remote branch
b/a starts matching that pattern wouldn't it?

Earlier we fixed the ambiguous use of branch.*.merge in
756373da; I think the same reasoning should apply here.

Configuration is something you set once because you want to
forget about it afterwards (iow, not having to type every time),
and I think making sure it names things unambiguously outweighs
one-time convenience of being able to write the configuration in
a looser fashion.  

If somebody does "git checkout -B origin/next" which does:

	git checkout -b next origin/next &&
        git repo-config branch.next.merge $merge

I would expect that the enhanced "checkout" script would not
have any trouble arranging $merge to fully spell out
refs/heads/next.

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Merging this at this moment would be a pain even if there were
no downsides, as there are a few topics that want to touch
parse-remote and fetch (two already in 'pu', and git-bundle
series also wants to hook into git-fetch); these topics would
need to get adjusted if this clean-up goes in first.

A problematic decision :)

Not at all.