Re: [PATCH v5 06/10] fast-export: add new --refspec option

Felipe Contreras [off-list ref] writes:

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Felipe Contreras [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

+test_expect_success 'use refspec' '
+     git fast-export --refspec refs/heads/master:refs/heads/foobar master | \
+             grep "^commit " | sort | uniq > actual &&

It feels somewhat redundant that you have to twice say that you are
pushing your "master", once with --refspec and then the branch
name.  Is this the best we can do?

As this has been discussed before and no other solution came forward, yes.

We need to take that "no other solution came forward" with a grain
of salt.  After all, this is your itch, and if nobody was interested
in helping you (which I think that we both understand entirely
plausible, given the recent history), it only means you didn't think
of any other solution.

I didn't think things through, but at the external UI level, I see a
possibility of a nicer way to express the above.

In our "push" refspec (and export is about pushing what we have), a
colonless refspec A is a short-hand for A:A, so the traditional

	git fast-export master

can be thought of, in a new world order with a patch that lets you
do a ref mapping, a short-hand for an identical mapping:

	git fast-export master:master

It follows that the syntax naturally support

	git fast-export refs/heads/master:refs/heads/foobar

I would think.

That approach lets you express ref mapping without a new option
--refspec, which goes contrary to existing UI for any commands in
Git (I think nobody takes refspec as a value to a dashed-option in
the transport; both in fetch and push, they are proper operands,
i.e. command line arguments to the command), no?