Re: [PATCH] push: do not turn --delete '' into a matching push

When we added a syntax sugar "git push remote --delete <ref>" to
"git push" as a synonym to the canonical "git push remote :<ref>"
syntax at f517f1f2 (builtin-push: add --delete as syntactic sugar
for :foo, 2009-12-30), we weren't careful enough to make sure that
<ref> is not empty.

Blindly rewriting "--delete <ref>" to ":<ref>" means that an empty
string <ref> results in refspec ":", which is the syntax to ask for
"matching" push that does not delete anything.

Worse yet, if there were matching refs that can be fast-forwarded,
they would have been published prematurely, even if the user feels
that they are not ready yet to be pushed out, which would be a real
disaster.

Noticed-by: Tilman Vogel [off-list ref]
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <redacted>
---

 * So this time with an obvious test.  It is somewhat surprising
   that this has been left unnoticed for the past 10 years.

 builtin/push.c        | 2 +-
 t/t5516-fetch-push.sh | 5 +++++
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/builtin/push.c b/builtin/push.c
index 03adb58602..194967ed79 100644
--- a/builtin/push.c
+++ b/builtin/push.c

@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ static void set_refspecs(const char **refs, int nr, const char *repo)
                        else
                                refspec_appendf(&rs, "refs/tags/%s", ref);
                } else if (deleterefs) {
-                       if (strchr(ref, ':'))
+                       if (strchr(ref, ':') || !*ref)
                                die(_("--delete only accepts plain target ref names"));
                        refspec_appendf(&rs, ":%s", ref);
                } else if (!strchr(ref, ':')) {

diff --git a/t/t5516-fetch-push.sh b/t/t5516-fetch-push.sh
index 3ed121d0ce..7eee4e782f 100755
--- a/t/t5516-fetch-push.sh
+++ b/t/t5516-fetch-push.sh

@@ -824,6 +824,11 @@ test_expect_success 'push --delete refuses src:dest refspecs' '
        test_must_fail git push testrepo --delete master:foo
 '

+test_expect_success 'push --delete refuses empty string' '
+       mk_test testrepo heads/master &&
+       test_must_fail git push testrepo --delete ""
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'warn on push to HEAD of non-bare repository' '
        mk_test testrepo heads/master &&
        (
--

2.30.1-824-gddfeb442a8