Re: [RFC/PATCH 1/2] remote tracking: return the tracking branch for the given branches

Santi Béjar [off-list ref] writes:

2009/6/18 Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref]:

quoted

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Santi Béjar wrote:

quoted

diff --git a/Documentation/git-remote.txt b/Documentation/git-remote.txt
index 9e2b4ea..e444899 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-remote.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-remote.txt

@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ SYNOPSIS
 'git remote show' [-n] <name>
 'git remote prune' [-n | --dry-run] <name>
 'git remote update' [-p | --prune] [group | remote]...
+'git remote tracking' <name> <branch>...

 DESCRIPTION
 -----------

@@ -128,6 +129,12 @@ be updated.  (See linkgit:git-config[1]).
 +
 With `--prune` option, prune all the remotes that are updated.

+'tracking'::
+
+Returns the tracking branch for the given remote (<name>) and branch
+(<branch>). Note that <branch> must exactly match the left hand side of
+the refspec of the given remote.
+

From that description, it is not clear to me if the branch is the _remote_
branch, the branch _on_ the remote, or the local branch.

OK. s/and branch/and remote branch/

quoted

If it is the remote branch (or the branch on the remote), I wonder how you
deal with ambiguities, as I can easily create hundreds of branches
tracking the same remote branch.

AFAICS from remote_find_tracking (and some tests), it picks the first match.

So, additional text could be: In case of multiple matches, it picks
the first one.

Why not have both:

  git remote tracking <remote> <remote branch>

would show all local branches that track <remote branch>, and have
<remote> as default remote, while

  git remote tracking <local branch>

would show <remote> and <remote branch> if <local branch> is following
remote-tracking branch.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git