Re: why no "git fetch --dry-run" ?

[Baz <brian.ewins@gmail.com>]

2008/11/21 Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org>:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 04:41:57PM -0500, Leo Razoumov <slonik.az@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am curious why there is "git push --dry-run" and no "git fetch
>> --dry-run" nor "git pull --dry-run". It would make sense to keep
>> push/pull/fetch as symmetric as possible.
>> For example, I just want to see which branches, if any, changed on a
>> remote repository since my last fetch. "git fetch -v --dry-run" would
>> be handy in this case.
>
> Actually fetch - at a core level - isn't symmetric to push, the protocol
> is completely different. I haven't checked the source, but I suppose
> that the push protocol has "dry run" support, while the fetch one
> doesn't have.
>

I wrote the patch for "push --dry-run" because I was more worried
about messing up the central repository (which I can't fix) than
messing up my local repository (which I can). It just needed a few
checks added to send-pack to make it work. I guess it's not been done
for fetch yet because nobody had that itch, shouldn't be too hard to
write. Certainly, other people have asked for it.

-Baz