[question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

Hi all,
is there a way to verify, using the UI, whether a local branch is
tracking a remote branch?

Ciao,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/
http://mypage.vodafone.it/

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 12:32:29PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> is there a way to verify, using the UI, whether a local branch is
> tracking a remote branch?

Do you mean "whether it is tracking any branch", or "whether the branch
is is tracking is remote"?

If the former, then I think if one of branch.$branch.{merge,rebase}
is set, it is tracking something. The tracked thing is remote unless
branch.$branch.remote is ".".

-Peff

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 4/5/09, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 12:32:29PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
>
>> is there a way to verify, using the UI, whether a local branch is
>> tracking a remote branch?
>
> Do you mean "whether it is tracking any branch", or "whether the branch
> is is tracking is remote"?

I mean whether it is tracking a branch and if it is I want to know
which branch is being tracked.

> If the former, then I think if one of branch.$branch.{merge,rebase}
> is set, it is tracking something. The tracked thing is remote unless
> branch.$branch.remote is ".".

An example:
$ git clone -n URL temp
$ cd temp
$ git branch -r
  origin/master
  origin/foo
  Origin/bar
$ git checkout --track -b foo origin/foo

Now, how can I know that foo is tracking origin/foo ?

Thanks.


Ciao,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/
http://mypage.vodafone.it/

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 11:25:29PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> An example:
> $ git clone -n URL temp
> $ cd temp
> $ git branch -r
>   origin/master
>   origin/foo
>   Origin/bar
> $ git checkout --track -b foo origin/foo
> 
> Now, how can I know that foo is tracking origin/foo ?

Doing it right is hard. You have to:

  1. check branch.foo.merge and branch.foo.rebase; if no value, it is not
     tracking anything; if it is, remember that value as $m

  2. check branch.foo.remote for the remote name, $r

  3. check the fetch refspecs for remote $r; these can come from
     the config, or from .git/remotes/* files. Maybe even .git/branches
     files; I don't even remember how those work.

  4. find the refspec that fetches from $m; then find the matching
     destination for that refspec. That is the tracking branch.

E.g., in your example (and using a modern git):

  1. $m is refs/heads/foo
  2. $r is origin
  3. The fetch refspec is in remote.origin.fetch, and is generally
     "refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*"
  4. So refs/heads/foo becomes refs/remotes/origin/foo.
     refs/remotes/origin/foo is your tracking branch.

Steps 1 and 2 are easy, but 3 and 4 are a bit nasty. You can fake it by
assuming that "refs/heads/$m" on "$r" is always "refs/remotes/$r/$m",
which is true for very vanilla setups.

There is C code that does this, but there is not a good way of accessing
it from the command-line. The best you can do is "git remote show
origin", which on recent git versions should show something like:

  ...
  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
    foo    merges with remote foo
  ...

But of course that implies that you already guessed the remote "origin".
And it's not using plumbing, so it's not very suitable for scripts.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to expose this functionality via
"for-each-ref". Something like this (which would need cleanup,
documentation, and perhaps a :short variant):

---
diff --git a/builtin-for-each-ref.c b/builtin-for-each-ref.c
index 5cbb4b0..3f418e4 100644
--- a/builtin-for-each-ref.c
+++ b/builtin-for-each-ref.c
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 #include "blob.h"
 #include "quote.h"
 #include "parse-options.h"
+#include "remote.h"
 
 /* Quoting styles */
 #define QUOTE_NONE 0
@@ -66,6 +67,7 @@ static struct {
 	{ "subject" },
 	{ "body" },
 	{ "contents" },
+	{ "tracking" },
 };
 
 /*
@@ -699,6 +701,18 @@ static void populate_value(struct refinfo *ref)
 				v->s = s;
 			}
 		}
+		if (!strcmp(name, "tracking")) {
+			struct branch *branch;
+			if (prefixcmp(ref->refname, "refs/heads/"))
+				continue;
+			branch = branch_get(ref->refname + 11);
+			if (branch && branch->merge && branch->merge[0] &&
+			    branch->merge[0]->dst)
+				v->s = branch->merge[0]->dst;
+			else
+				v->s = NULL;
+			free(branch); /* XXX should also free other parts? */
+		}
 	}
 
 	grab_values(ref->value, 0, obj, buf, size);





> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> Ciao,
> -- 
> Paolo
> http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/
> http://mypage.vodafone.it/

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> I don't think it would be unreasonable to expose this functionality via
> "for-each-ref". Something like this (which would need cleanup,
> documentation, and perhaps a :short variant):

I think that is a sane approach, but isn't "tracking" a misnomer?  I think
what you are describing is what is called "the upstream branch" by the
description of Documentation/config.txt::branch.<name>.merge, and not what
people call "tracking branch" (see Documentation/glossary-content.txt).

In a repository with a handcrafted fetch refspec, being able to show
"tracking" information would also be interesting (e.g. a clone of git.git
made with pre-1.5.0 git would say "origin's master" for refs/heads/origin
and "origin's next" for refs/heads/next), but the separate-remote layout
is the default these days, so it wouldn't be so interesting anymore.  In
other words, I am not suggesting you to add "tracking" information.

I also wonder if you want to say "this remote" and "that branch"
separately.  As far as I can tell you are not giving the former but only
the latter information?

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 10:28:02PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> > I don't think it would be unreasonable to expose this functionality via
> > "for-each-ref". Something like this (which would need cleanup,
> > documentation, and perhaps a :short variant):
> 
> I think that is a sane approach, but isn't "tracking" a misnomer?  I think
> what you are describing is what is called "the upstream branch" by the
> description of Documentation/config.txt::branch.<name>.merge, and not what
> people call "tracking branch" (see Documentation/glossary-content.txt).

I think this is the classic "both of these concepts are called
tracking and it is confusing" that people complain about from time to
time. This is the value created by "--track", and most of the internal
functions call it that (e.g., stat_tracking_info, fill_tracking_info,
etc).

But I am happy to call it something else if it will reduce confusion.
"upstream" is a fine name, I think (though that is often referring to
the upstream _repository_, so maybe somebody might expect it to print
"origin" here).

> I also wonder if you want to say "this remote" and "that branch"
> separately.  As far as I can tell you are not giving the former but only
> the latter information?

Well, I don't think they are two separate parts. "that branch" has
already used information about the remote to reach its answer, and is
self-contained. It's all you need to know to do any non-fetching
operations (like seeing how your commits compare with upstream's, for
example).

Which isn't to say "this remote" might not be interesting. But I think
that is somewhat independent of this value, and moreover, it is already
trivial to find via "branch.*.remote" (or are there lookup rules I am
forgetting about?). The point of this exercise was that it is very
tricky to do the "upstream" correctly, so exposing the C code makes
sense.

-Peff

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 11:25:29PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
>
>> An example:
>> $ git clone -n URL temp
>> $ cd temp
>> $ git branch -r
>>   origin/master
>>   origin/foo
>>   Origin/bar
>> $ git checkout --track -b foo origin/foo
>>
>> Now, how can I know that foo is tracking origin/foo ?
>
> Doing it right is hard. You have to:
>
>  1. check branch.foo.merge and branch.foo.rebase; if no value, it is not
>     tracking anything; if it is, remember that value as $m
>
>  2. check branch.foo.remote for the remote name, $r
>
>  3. check the fetch refspecs for remote $r; these can come from
>     the config, or from .git/remotes/* files. Maybe even .git/branches
>     files; I don't even remember how those work.
>
>  4. find the refspec that fetches from $m; then find the matching
>     destination for that refspec. That is the tracking branch.
>
> E.g., in your example (and using a modern git):
>
>  1. $m is refs/heads/foo
>  2. $r is origin
>  3. The fetch refspec is in remote.origin.fetch, and is generally
>     "refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*"
>  4. So refs/heads/foo becomes refs/remotes/origin/foo.
>     refs/remotes/origin/foo is your tracking branch.
>
> Steps 1 and 2 are easy, but 3 and 4 are a bit nasty. You can fake it by
> assuming that "refs/heads/$m" on "$r" is always "refs/remotes/$r/$m",
> which is true for very vanilla setups.
>
> There is C code that does this, but there is not a good way of accessing
> it from the command-line. The best you can do is "git remote show
> origin", which on recent git versions should show something like:
>
>  ...
>  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
>    foo    merges with remote foo
>  ...
>
> But of course that implies that you already guessed the remote "origin".
> And it's not using plumbing, so it's not very suitable for scripts.
>
> I don't think it would be unreasonable to expose this functionality via
> "for-each-ref". Something like this (which would need cleanup,
> documentation, and perhaps a :short variant):

Jeff,
thank you very much for your prompt answers and for your patch.

I often act like a GIT "evangelist" trying to help friends and
colleagues in starting using GIT and one of the "complaint" I'm
getting is that people expect to get this information out of the
branch command.

I mean something like:
$ git branch
 * foo <-> origin/foo

What do you think?

Ciao,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/
http://mypage.vodafone.it/

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 10:30:21AM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> I often act like a GIT "evangelist" trying to help friends and
> colleagues in starting using GIT and one of the "complaint" I'm
> getting is that people expect to get this information out of the
> branch command.
> 
> I mean something like:
> $ git branch
>  * foo <-> origin/foo
> 
> What do you think?

Ah. Well, if you just want it for human consumption, that is much
easier. :) That information is already shown by "git status":

  $ git status
  # On branch next
  # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/next' by 8 commits.
  ...

"git branch -v" is already looking at the information, but it
prints only the "ahead/behind" summary. E.g.,:

  $ git branch -v
    bar    1e0672d [behind 5] some commit
  * baz    dccc1cd [ahead 1, behind 3] other commit
    foo    787d5a8 [ahead 1] another commit
    master a0e632e actual upstream master

It would be pretty trivial to make it do something fancier. The
(extremely rough) patch below shows the tracking branch when
double-verbosity is given:

  $ git branch -vv
  * next 2d44318 [origin/next: ahead 9] branch -vv wip

So the questions are:

  - is this worth it? The verbose information is already available via
    git status, but only for the current branch.

  - should it be the default with "-v", or require "-vv"? It take up a
    bit of screen real estate, which is already in short supply for
    "branch -v"

  - in both the "status" and "branch" cases, we show nothing if they
    are equivalent. I guess you would want to see

      * next 2d44318 [origin/next] branch -vv wip

    or

      * next 2d44318 [origin/next: uptodate] branch -vv wip

-Peff

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 4/6/09, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 10:30:21AM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

>> I mean something like:
>> $ git branch
>>  * foo <-> origin/foo
>>
>> What do you think?
>
> Ah. Well, if you just want it for human consumption, that is much
> easier. :) That information is already shown by "git status":
>
>   $ git status
>   # On branch next
>   # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/next' by 8 commits.
>   ...

right, but it can only ne used for the current branch.

> "git branch -v" is already looking at the information, but it
> prints only the "ahead/behind" summary. E.g.,:
>
>   $ git branch -v
>     bar    1e0672d [behind 5] some commit
>   * baz    dccc1cd [ahead 1, behind 3] other commit
>     foo    787d5a8 [ahead 1] another commit
>     master a0e632e actual upstream master
>
> It would be pretty trivial to make it do something fancier. The
> (extremely rough) patch below shows the tracking branch when
> double-verbosity is given:
>
>   $ git branch -vv
>   * next 2d44318 [origin/next: ahead 9] branch -vv wip

I like it!

> So the questions are:
>
>   - is this worth it? The verbose information is already available via
>     git status, but only for the current branch.

I think it's a very usefull information.
I feel like it would be nice to have this information being part of
the basic git branch output and not associated to the -vv option.

>   - should it be the default with "-v", or require "-vv"? It take up a
>     bit of screen real estate, which is already in short supply for
>     "branch -v"

How about be just part of the default git branch output?


>   - in both the "status" and "branch" cases, we show nothing if they
>     are equivalent. I guess you would want to see
>
>       * next 2d44318 [origin/next] branch -vv wip
>
>     or
>
>       * next 2d44318 [origin/next: uptodate] branch -vv wip

Sure.

Thanks!

Ciao,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/
http://mypage.vodafone.it/

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 12:00:20AM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> > So the questions are:
> >
> >   - is this worth it? The verbose information is already available via
> >     git status, but only for the current branch.
> 
> I think it's a very usefull information.
> I feel like it would be nice to have this information being part of
> the basic git branch output and not associated to the -vv option.

I'm not sure we should disrupt the simplicity of the current "git
branch" output. I would be curious to hear what others think.

-Peff

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Michael J Gruber]

Jeff King venit, vidit, dixit 06.04.2009 06:34:
> On Sun, Apr 05, 2009 at 11:25:29PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
> 
>> An example:
>> $ git clone -n URL temp
>> $ cd temp
>> $ git branch -r
>>   origin/master
>>   origin/foo
>>   Origin/bar
>> $ git checkout --track -b foo origin/foo
>>
>> Now, how can I know that foo is tracking origin/foo ?
> 
> Doing it right is hard. You have to:
> 
>   1. check branch.foo.merge and branch.foo.rebase; if no value, it is not
>      tracking anything; if it is, remember that value as $m
> 
>   2. check branch.foo.remote for the remote name, $r
> 
>   3. check the fetch refspecs for remote $r; these can come from
>      the config, or from .git/remotes/* files. Maybe even .git/branches
>      files; I don't even remember how those work.
> 
>   4. find the refspec that fetches from $m; then find the matching
>      destination for that refspec. That is the tracking branch.
> 
> E.g., in your example (and using a modern git):
> 
>   1. $m is refs/heads/foo
>   2. $r is origin
>   3. The fetch refspec is in remote.origin.fetch, and is generally
>      "refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*"
>   4. So refs/heads/foo becomes refs/remotes/origin/foo.
>      refs/remotes/origin/foo is your tracking branch.
> 
> Steps 1 and 2 are easy, but 3 and 4 are a bit nasty. You can fake it by
> assuming that "refs/heads/$m" on "$r" is always "refs/remotes/$r/$m",
> which is true for very vanilla setups.
> 
> There is C code that does this, but there is not a good way of accessing
> it from the command-line. The best you can do is "git remote show
> origin", which on recent git versions should show something like:
> 
>   ...
>   Local branches configured for 'git pull':
>     foo    merges with remote foo
>   ...
> 
> But of course that implies that you already guessed the remote "origin".
> And it's not using plumbing, so it's not very suitable for scripts.
> 
> I don't think it would be unreasonable to expose this functionality via
> "for-each-ref". Something like this (which would need cleanup,
> documentation, and perhaps a :short variant):
> 
> ---
> diff --git a/builtin-for-each-ref.c b/builtin-for-each-ref.c
> index 5cbb4b0..3f418e4 100644
> --- a/builtin-for-each-ref.c
> +++ b/builtin-for-each-ref.c
> @@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
>  #include "blob.h"
>  #include "quote.h"
>  #include "parse-options.h"
> +#include "remote.h"
>  
>  /* Quoting styles */
>  #define QUOTE_NONE 0
> @@ -66,6 +67,7 @@ static struct {
>  	{ "subject" },
>  	{ "body" },
>  	{ "contents" },
> +	{ "tracking" },
>  };
>  
>  /*
> @@ -699,6 +701,18 @@ static void populate_value(struct refinfo *ref)
>  				v->s = s;
>  			}
>  		}
> +		if (!strcmp(name, "tracking")) {
> +			struct branch *branch;
> +			if (prefixcmp(ref->refname, "refs/heads/"))
> +				continue;
> +			branch = branch_get(ref->refname + 11);
> +			if (branch && branch->merge && branch->merge[0] &&
> +			    branch->merge[0]->dst)
> +				v->s = branch->merge[0]->dst;

Isn't that missing out on those cases where you --track (i.e. follow) a
local (upstream) branch? See
5e6e2b4 (Make local branches behave like remote branches when --tracked,
2009-04-01)

> +			else
> +				v->s = NULL;
> +			free(branch); /* XXX should also free other parts? */
> +		}
>  	}
>  
>  	grab_values(ref->value, 0, obj, buf, size);
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

If we hook it up into git-branch there would be to useful directions:

- "git branch --follows foo" could list all branches which follow foo,
analogous to --contains. It gives you all your feature work on top of
foo, all branches affected by rebasing foo etc.

- "git branch --whatever foo" could list the branch whoch foo follows.

I just notices that "git branch -v foo" does not give me the "-v" output
for foo... Improving that would open up the possibility to go for -vv foo.

Michael

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Jeff King]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 02:00:34PM +0200, Michael J Gruber wrote:

> > +		if (!strcmp(name, "tracking")) {
> > +			struct branch *branch;
> > +			if (prefixcmp(ref->refname, "refs/heads/"))
> > +				continue;
> > +			branch = branch_get(ref->refname + 11);
> > +			if (branch && branch->merge && branch->merge[0] &&
> > +			    branch->merge[0]->dst)
> > +				v->s = branch->merge[0]->dst;
> 
> Isn't that missing out on those cases where you --track (i.e. follow) a
> local (upstream) branch? See
> 5e6e2b4 (Make local branches behave like remote branches when --tracked,
> 2009-04-01)

I thought the logic was in branch_get to handle it. And indeed:

  $ git checkout --track -b new master
  Branch new set up to track local branch master.
  Switched to a new branch "new"
  $ git for-each-ref --format='%(refname) %(tracking)'
  refs/heads/master
  refs/heads/new refs/heads/master

So it will point either to something in refs/remotes or in refs/heads,
as applicable.

> If we hook it up into git-branch there would be to useful directions:

The difference being that git-branch is porcelain and git-for-each-ref
is plumbing. So they really serve different purposes.

> - "git branch --follows foo" could list all branches which follow foo,
> analogous to --contains. It gives you all your feature work on top of
> foo, all branches affected by rebasing foo etc.

Sure, that would probably be useful.

> - "git branch --whatever foo" could list the branch whoch foo follows.
> 
> I just notices that "git branch -v foo" does not give me the "-v" output
> for foo... Improving that would open up the possibility to go for -vv foo.

See the "-vv" patch I just posted elsewhere in the thread.

-Peff

Re: [question] how can i verify whether a local branch is tracking a remote branch?

[Michael J Gruber]

Jeff King venit, vidit, dixit 06.04.2009 23:29:
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 02:00:34PM +0200, Michael J Gruber wrote:
> 
>>> +		if (!strcmp(name, "tracking")) {
>>> +			struct branch *branch;
>>> +			if (prefixcmp(ref->refname, "refs/heads/"))
>>> +				continue;
>>> +			branch = branch_get(ref->refname + 11);
>>> +			if (branch && branch->merge && branch->merge[0] &&
>>> +			    branch->merge[0]->dst)
>>> +				v->s = branch->merge[0]->dst;
>>
>> Isn't that missing out on those cases where you --track (i.e. follow) a
>> local (upstream) branch? See
>> 5e6e2b4 (Make local branches behave like remote branches when --tracked,
>> 2009-04-01)
> 
> I thought the logic was in branch_get to handle it. And indeed:
> 
>   $ git checkout --track -b new master
>   Branch new set up to track local branch master.
>   Switched to a new branch "new"
>   $ git for-each-ref --format='%(refname) %(tracking)'
>   refs/heads/master
>   refs/heads/new refs/heads/master
> 
> So it will point either to something in refs/remotes or in refs/heads,
> as applicable.

Uhm, yes, sorry for the noise. It was actually me who fixed branch_get()...

> 
>> If we hook it up into git-branch there would be to useful directions:
> 
> The difference being that git-branch is porcelain and git-for-each-ref
> is plumbing. So they really serve different purposes.
> 
>> - "git branch --follows foo" could list all branches which follow foo,
>> analogous to --contains. It gives you all your feature work on top of
>> foo, all branches affected by rebasing foo etc.
> 
> Sure, that would probably be useful.
> 
>> - "git branch --whatever foo" could list the branch whoch foo follows.
>>
>> I just notices that "git branch -v foo" does not give me the "-v" output
>> for foo... Improving that would open up the possibility to go for -vv foo.
> 
> See the "-vv" patch I just posted elsewhere in the thread.

I'll comment there ;)

Michael