Re: Could this be done simpler?

[Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>]

Randal L. Schwartz venit, vidit, dixit 25.06.2009 16:33:
>>>>>> "Junio" == Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
> Junio> (5) Continue pretending to be Linus, complete the octopus.  The key is to
> Junio>     let the "fetch" phase of this to append to the FETCH_HEAD, not
> Junio>     replacing it.
> 
> Junio>     $ git pull --append \
> Junio>       git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/audit-current \
> Junio>       for-linus
> 
> The relatively current doc of "--append" looks like this:
> 
>        -a, --append
>            Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing
>            contents of will be overwritten.
> 
> I read this three times, and still don't know what it means (and it doesn't
> even scan well as English), so I would have never known to use this strategy.
> Can you explain this more in detail, or point at something in the mailing list
> that does?

Uhm,
my version of git-fetch.1 has

       -a, --append
           Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the
existing contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option
           old data in .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.

That at least scans better in English. It does not make it very clear
what the consequences are, though.

Michael