Re: [PATCH v2] ls-remote: print URL when no repo is specified

Hi,

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Tay Ray Chuan [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

After 9c00de5 (ls-remote: fall-back to default remotes when no remote
specified), when no repository is specified, ls-remote may use
the URL/remote in the config "branch.<name>.remote" or the remote
"origin"; it may not be immediately obvious to the user which was used.

I cannot convince myself that this is a good change, as I've always
thought "ls-remote" output as something people want to let their scripts
read and parse.  9c00de5 may have given an enhancement to these scripts in
the sense that they can now respond to an empty input from the end user,
but this patch forces them to change the way they parse the output from
the command.

in this patch, the remote url is printed to stderr, instead of stdout,
so existing scripts should be safe.

I also think this patch is solving a wrong problem.

When an end user does not know which remote ls-remote would be talking to
by default, what else does he *not* know?  Probably which remote "pull"
would be fetching from and what branch it would be merging with?  Doesn't
he have a better command to use to learn that information to reorient
himself when he is lost that way?

I'm not sure if there's a command to determine the remote - I'd be
interested to know it, if there's one.

That aside, I believe this patch as an attempt at improving usability.

Compare (pre-patch):

  $ git ls-remote
  (scratch head)
  $ git-x # to determine which remote we listed refs from

with (post-patch):

  $ git ls-remote

The advantage is minor, but I feel there's some added convenience.

-- 
Cheers,
Ray Chuan