Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] pull --rebase: add --[no-]autostash flag

Mehul Jain [off-list ref] writes:

If user uses "git pull --[no-]autostash" then two possible things can be done:

           * Either "git pull" ignores "--[no-]autostash" and calls
             underlying "git merge",
             as merge stashes the untracked files by itself. Thus
             ignoring --no-autostash
             flag given by user.

           * Or "git pull" dies with the following error:

                    "--[no-]autostash is only valid when --rebase is used.
                     Example: git pull --rebase --[no-]autostash"

I suggest that the latter option should be used in this case as user should know
that stashing is performed by "git merge" anyway

Not exactly. "git merge" doesn't do a stash, but it accepts to run if
local changes do not touch the same files as the merge. So, --autostash
is usually not needed for merge.

But I agree that erroring out is better. Silently accepting the option
and doing nothing with it would be confusing for users. This would mean
that "git pull --autostash" would work, but still sometimes show the error:

  error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:

The situation is different for command-line options and for config
variables: the config variable wasn't explicitly specified for each run
of "git pull", hence it's acceptable to ignore its value when we have
nothing to do with it.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/