remote does not support deleting refs

remote does not support deleting refs

[Martin]

Hi,

I tried to setup a central git repository. Access is via ssh.
How do I delete a remote branch? If I try it using
 > git branch -d -r origin/testbranch
 > git push origin :refs/heads/testbranch
I get the error

To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
  ! [rejected]        testbranch (remote does not support deleting refs)
error: failed to push some refs to 
'ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository'

So how do I setup my remote repository to allow deleting remote branches?

Thanks,
Martin

error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: was remote does not support deleting refs

[Martin]

Hi,

it seems that an old verison on the remote site was the problem:
On debian/etch git seems to be too old. I upgraded git to the testing 
version and now I can delete remote branches.

But I get another error:
$ git push origin :testbranch
To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
  - [deleted]         testbranch
error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: No such file 
or directory
error: Failed to delete

Any idea?

Thanks,
Martin

Martin schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> I tried to setup a central git repository. Access is via ssh.
> How do I delete a remote branch? If I try it using
>  > git branch -d -r origin/testbranch
>  > git push origin :refs/heads/testbranch
> I get the error
> 
> To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
>  ! [rejected]        testbranch (remote does not support deleting refs)
> error: failed to push some refs to 
> 'ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository'
> 
> So how do I setup my remote repository to allow deleting remote branches?
> 
> Thanks,
> Martin
> -- 
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> 

Re: remote does not support deleting refs

[Dmitry Potapov]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 1:22 AM, Martin <html-kurs@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
>  ! [rejected]        testbranch (remote does not support deleting refs)

What version of Git do you use on the server? I think Git before v1.5 does
not support deleting remote refs. You have to upgrade Git on your server.

Dmitry

Re: error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: was remote does not support deleting refs

[Dmitry Potapov]

Hi,

[please do not top post]

On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 02:20:18AM +0200, Martin wrote:
>_
> But I get another error:
> $ git push origin :testbranch
> To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
>  - [deleted]         testbranch
> error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: No such file_
> or directory
> error: Failed to delete
>_
> Any idea?

It is harmless. It is just that "git push origin :refs/heads/testbranch"
cannot remove your local reference to that branch because you already have
removed it by running "git branch -d -r origin/testbranch"

Normally you just run "git push origin :refs/heads/testbranch" without
"git branch -d -r origin/testbranch" and then you will not have this error.

Dmitry

Re: error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: was remote does not support deleting refs

[Jeff King]

On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 10:34:31PM +0400, Dmitry Potapov wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 02:20:18AM +0200, Martin wrote:
> > But I get another error:
> > $ git push origin :testbranch
> > To ssh://myserver.com/my/path/to/repository
> >  - [deleted]         testbranch
> > error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: No such file_
> > or directory
> > error: Failed to delete
> >_
> > Any idea?
> 
> It is harmless. It is just that "git push origin :refs/heads/testbranch"
> cannot remove your local reference to that branch because you already have
> removed it by running "git branch -d -r origin/testbranch"

It is harmless, but it still feels a little wrong to scare the user with
that message, especially since "Failed to delete" is ambiguous; it looks
like the main operation, deleting the remote ref, failed. But it didn't;
the operation that failed was something not even explicitly asked for.

How about this cleanup:

-- >8 --
make deleting a missing ref more quiet

If git attempts to delete a ref, but the unlink of the ref
file fails, we print a message to stderr. This is usually a
good thing, but if the error is ENOENT, then it indicates
that the ref has _already_ been deleted. And since that's
our goal, it doesn't make sense to complain to the user.

This harmonizes the error reporting behavior for the
unpacked and packed cases; the packed case already printed
nothing on ENOENT, but the unpacked printed unconditionally.

Additionally, send-pack would, when deleting the tracking
ref corresponding to a remote delete, print "Failed to
delete" on any failure. This can be a misleading
message, since we actually _did_ delete at the remote side,
but we failed to delete locally. Rather than make the
message more precise, let's just eliminate it entirely; the
delete_ref routine already takes care of printing out a much
more specific message about what went wrong.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 builtin-send-pack.c          |    3 +--
 refs.c                       |    2 +-
 t/t5404-tracking-branches.sh |    7 +++++++
 3 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/builtin-send-pack.c b/builtin-send-pack.c
index d76260c..a708d0a 100644
--- a/builtin-send-pack.c
+++ b/builtin-send-pack.c
@@ -226,8 +226,7 @@ static void update_tracking_ref(struct remote *remote, struct ref *ref)
 		if (args.verbose)
 			fprintf(stderr, "updating local tracking ref '%s'\n", rs.dst);
 		if (ref->deletion) {
-			if (delete_ref(rs.dst, NULL))
-				error("Failed to delete");
+			delete_ref(rs.dst, NULL);
 		} else
 			update_ref("update by push", rs.dst,
 					ref->new_sha1, NULL, 0, 0);
diff --git a/refs.c b/refs.c
index 6c6e9e5..39a3b23 100644
--- a/refs.c
+++ b/refs.c
@@ -925,7 +925,7 @@ int delete_ref(const char *refname, const unsigned char *sha1)
 		i = strlen(lock->lk->filename) - 5; /* .lock */
 		lock->lk->filename[i] = 0;
 		err = unlink(lock->lk->filename);
-		if (err) {
+		if (err && errno != ENOENT) {
 			ret = 1;
 			error("unlink(%s) failed: %s",
 			      lock->lk->filename, strerror(errno));
diff --git a/t/t5404-tracking-branches.sh b/t/t5404-tracking-branches.sh
index 1493a92..64fe261 100755
--- a/t/t5404-tracking-branches.sh
+++ b/t/t5404-tracking-branches.sh
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ test_expect_success 'setup' '
 	git commit -m 1 &&
 	git branch b1 &&
 	git branch b2 &&
+	git branch b3 &&
 	git clone . aa &&
 	git checkout b1 &&
 	echo b1 >>file &&
@@ -50,4 +51,10 @@ test_expect_success 'deleted branches have their tracking branches removed' '
 	test "$(git rev-parse origin/b1)" = "origin/b1"
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'already deleted tracking branches ignored' '
+	git branch -d -r origin/b3 &&
+	git push origin :b3 >output 2>&1 &&
+	! grep error output
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
1.5.6.2.381.ga86b

Re: error: unlink(.git/refs/remotes/origin/testbranch) failed: was remote does not support deleting refs

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> It is harmless, but it still feels a little wrong to scare the user with
> that message, especially since "Failed to delete" is ambiguous; it looks
> like the main operation, deleting the remote ref, failed. But it didn't;
> the operation that failed was something not even explicitly asked for.
>
> How about this cleanup:

Ack.