Jeff King wrote (2008-04-09 10:57 -0400): > git-fetch <options> <repository> <refspec> I have found this refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/* stuff quite confusing, but I'm starting to understand them. I know my way with them but still they seem quite unnecessary hackerish. Pull and push work pretty nicely without knowing about any refs/* stuff; they can be operated with simple branch names. Fetch is another story. Some ideas: $ git fetch <URL> would be equivalent to $ git fetch <URL> +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/<name>/* In other words, fetch all the branches from remote repo and store them locally as remote tracking branches to <name>/ hieararchy. The <name> is the last component taken from the <URL> (maybe "origin" if it can't be detected). Currently "git fetch <URL>" does not seem to do anything useful for non-git-hackers. It seems to fetch objects but not create any branches referring to them. As a comparison, let's configure a remote and run similar fetch command without any refspecs explicitly named: $ git remote add <name> <URL> $ git fetch <name> Now this fetch really creates all the branches (as defined in remote.<name>.fetch) which is nice and the way Git currently works. So would it be any good if "git fetch <URL>" without refpecs would use +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/<name>/* ? In any case the current behaviour seems quite unfriendly. Some more ideas for simple refspecs: $ git fetch <URL|name> <branch> would be equivalent to $ git fetch <URL|name> +refs/heads/<branch>:refs/remotes/<name>/<branch> Again the same behaviour with <URL> and configured remote <name>. In the <URL> case the <name> is the last component of the <URL>. $ git fetch <URL|name> <Rbranch>:<Lbranch> would be equivalent to $ git fetch <URL|name> +refs/heads/<Rbranch>:refs/remotes/<Lbranch> Note that by giving the destination branch (the right side of colon) the new remote tracking branch would be created directly to the refs/remotes/ hierarchy, not to refs/remotes/<name>/ hierarchy like in previous examples. This lets user a bit more control as she decided to give <Lbranch> explicitly. User may want to give refspec master:<name>/master to have new branch created as refs/remotes/<name>/master. With above example commands it is not possible to fetch remote branches and store refs locally to refs/heads/ hierarchy. For this it would either need another step - "git branch my-branch <name>/master" - or use the long refspec form with fetch: +refs/heads/master:refs/heads/my-branch . Does this sound any good? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
