Re: Please fix the useless email prompts

[Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com>]

Hi Anatoli,

On 21 August 2017 at 07:57, Anatolii Borodin <anatoly.borodin@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Maybe I am missing something obvious, but if that's the case then
>> can't we just do the identity check when trying to make new commits,
>> in which case you should be able to pull without setting your
>> identity?
>
> `git pull` is `git fetch + git merge / git rebase` in disguise, so we
> should be ready if git will want to create a merge commit or do a
> rebase automatically (and potentially create new commits with
> `Committer` set to the current user). `git fetch` and `git clone`
> alone, `git branch`, `git checkout` etc don't care about the email (as
> of 2.14.1), even if `user.useConfigOnly` is set to `true`.

Is there any reason `git pull` can't delay that check until the point
where it actually tries to create a new commit? It's fair enough to
error if a new commit needs to be made, and there is no user
configured, but for the use cases discussed here it seems a little
eager to error on the chance that the user will be needed.

It seems nicer for the user if the `git fetch` happens first, and if
the merge is not a fast forward, and there is no user configured, that
the error pops then. I don't know if this idea of "do as much as
possible before erroring" is consistent with any other errors we
handle.

Regards,

Andrew Ardill