Re: Default remote branch for local branch

[Josef Weidendorfer <Josef.Weidendorfer@gmx.de>]

On Friday 14 April 2006 18:16, you wrote:
> Dear diary, on Sun, Apr 02, 2006 at 06:17:29PM CEST, I got a letter
> where Josef Weidendorfer <Josef.Weidendorfer@gmx.de> said that...
> > > I would write the config like this:
> > > 
> > > [branch-upstream]
> > > master = linus
> > > ata-irq-pio = irq-pio
> > > ata-pata = pata-drivers
> > 
> > That is not working, as said above. But with above syntax extension,
> > with s/=/for/ it would be fine.
> 
> I'm sorry but I'm slow and I don't see it - why wouldn't this work?
> (Except that the key name is case insensitive, which isn't too big a
> deal IMHO.)

Hmm...
* IMHO "keys are case insensitive" is enough to not qualify for branch
names: currently, branch names are case sensitive, and with above syntax you
effectively change this rule (you can not distinguish upstreams for "master"
vs. "MASTER").
* a dot currently seems to be allowed in branch names. For config keys, the
dot separates subkeys.
* I thought it is a convention for config keys to be alphanum only,
eg. "/" isn't allowed, too (which is mandatory for branch names).
Unfortunately, I found nothing about allowed chars for config keys in the
documentation.
 
> I for one think that the 'for'-syntax is insane - it's unreadable (your
> primary query is by far most likely to be "what's the upstream when on
> branch X", not "what branches is this upstream for"), would convolute
> the configuration file syntax unnecessarily and would possibly also
> complicate the git-repo-config interface.

As far as I remember, the "... for ..." syntax was suggested by Linus for the
proxy.command config a long time ago. The original proposal there was to
use an URL as key part (as far as I can remember).

That said,

> Pavel's syntax is much nicer. 

... I agree with you here.

My suggestion would be to allow an optional syntax in the config file which is mapped
by git-repo-config to the normalized "... for ..."-scheme.
Eg. it should not be mandatory to specify "for ..." after the value of a key.
So instead of

  branch.upstream = linus for master

you should be able to say

  [branch]
  upstream for master = linus


Josef