Jiang Xin <worldhello.net@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Command "git branch -vv" will report tracking branches, but invalid
> tracking branches are also reported. This is because the function
> stat_tracking_info() can not distinguish whether the upstream branch
> does not exist, or nothing is changed between one branch and its
> upstream.
I am guessing that by "invalid", you used to have another branch
(possibly a remote one) you built a branch on (hence the upstream of
the latter is set to the former) and the former branch no longer
exists.
Shouldn't that case reported a bit more specially? After doing this:
git init
git commit --allow-empty -m initial ;# on master
git branch topicbase
git checkout -t -b topic topicbase
git commit --allow-empty -m topic ;# on topic
git branch -d topicbase
the branch "topic" _thinks_ it is still based on "topicbase", but of
course "git log @{u}.." will fail.
A few thought-alouds:
- Perhaps "git branch -d topicbase" should have warned that there
are some branches that are based on it? Should it have failed?
Or should it automatically removed branch.*.merge entries that
point at it (while warning)?
- The operation that removes the @{u} of some branch does not have
to be "git branch -d". It could be "remote --prune", and it does
not make much sense to fail that operation, as what is gone from
the other side is gone, and the point of having remote tracking
branches is to keep a faithful copy of the observed status of the
remote. It implies that failing "git branch -d topicbase" is not
a good idea. Also removing the branch.*.merge automatically is
probably not what the user wants (at least, the name would hint
something, even after the topicbase branch is gone).
So "git branch -v -v [topic]" would want to still say that topic is
based on topicbranch, even though the latter is gone and there is no
longer a real "building on" relationship.
E.g. before "git branch -d topicbase" we would see something like:
$ git branch -v -v
master e67ac84 initial
* topic 3fc0f2a [topicbase: ahead 1] topic
topicbase e67ac84 [master] initial
and after it, we currently see:
$ git branch -v -v
master e67ac84 initial
* topic 3fc0f2a [topicbase] topic
topicbase e67ac84 [master] initial
but we may want to say:
$ git branch -v -v
master e67ac84 initial
* topic 3fc0f2a [topicbase (gone)] topic
topicbase e67ac84 [master] initial
or something.
In order to distinguish these three cases (i.e. no tracking, with
configured but no longer valid tracking, and with tracking), you
would need more than true/false.
> This patch changes the return value of function stat_tracking_info().
> Only returns false when there is no tracking branch or the tracking
> branch is invalid, otherwise true.
Instead, you would need -1 (with "gone" base), 0 (no base), 1 (with
base).
This is a tangent, but we might want to rename stat_tracking_info().
A branch A building on top of another branch B does not mean A
"tracks" B. The wording is a source of confusion.
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