Re: Confusing git pull error message

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> So I think we need something like this. I wasn't able to figure out a
> test case to trigger the first code path below, though. It may not be
> possible; if we give a refspec on the command line, either it will be a
> candidate for merging or, if it does not exist, fetch will barf. So it
> may be that we can just collapse it down to a single case.

I think you are right.

By the way, I think the other case arms in the case statement that has the
sole caller of this function are never reached, no?

Back when you added the check in a74b170 (git-pull: disallow implicit
merging to detached HEAD, 2007-01-15), $? referred to the error status of
reading HEAD as a symbolic-ref so the check did make sense, but cd67e4d
(Teach 'git pull' about --rebase, 2007-11-28) made a stupid mistake that
nobody noticed.

> diff --git a/git-pull.sh b/git-pull.sh
> index edf3ce3..a831db5 100755
> --- a/git-pull.sh
> +++ b/git-pull.sh
> @@ -97,6 +97,18 @@ error_on_no_merge_candidates () {
>  		echo "Please specify which branch you want to merge on the command"
>  		echo "line and try again (e.g. 'git pull <repository> <refspec>')."
>  		echo "See git-pull(1) for details."
> +	elif [ -n "$1" ]; then
> +		if [ $# -gt 1 ]; then
> +			echo "You asked to pull from the remote '$1', but none"
> +			echo "of the things you asked to fetch were candidates"
> +			echo "for merging."
> +		else
> +			echo "You asked to pull from the remote '$1', but did"
> +			echo "not specify a branch to merge. Because this is"
> +			echo "not the default configured remote for your current"
> +			echo "branch, you must specify a branch on the command"
> +			echo "line."
> +		fi
>  	elif [ -z "$upstream" ]; then
>  		echo "You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you"
>  		echo "want to merge with, and 'branch.${curr_branch}.merge' in"
>