Offer an easy way to fetch/pull the branch matching the name of the current branch

[dscho]

When fetching from a remote, one can specify which ref(s) to fetch.

When pulling, there is even a very convenient convention to fetch and merge the "upstream branch", i.e. the one connected via git branch --set-upstream-to=<remote>/<branch>.

However, there is no convenient way to specify the name of the current branch, other than typing it out. This is a problem e.g. when working on a multi-platform contribution for the Git project itself, where the upstream branch might be origin/master, but the contributor needs work on the same branch on multiple machines. In this instance, the branch might need to be updated with git pull --rebase my-fork <current-branch>.

Let's introduce the --current-branch option for this, automagically appending the name of the current branch to the commands git fetch and git pull, allowing e.g. git pull --rebase --current-branch my-fork.

[phil-blain]

@dscho In simple cases, you could use @{push} for this, no?

# once
git config remote.pushDefault my-fork
git config push.default current # unfortunately needed

# then
git fetch my-fork
git rebase @{push}

It's on my todo list to make that work without having to change push.default, and adding command-line options to set per-branch branch.<name>.pushRemote (and eventually also allowing to easily configure a different name for the remote branch via push refspec)

I agree that doing that in one command via git pull would required more gymnastics because of the two arguments (remote and branch)...

[dscho]

you could use @{push} for this, no?

No:

$ git -c push.default=current pull dscho @{push}
fatal: invalid refspec '@{push}'

[phil-blain]

Yeah. I think it could make sense to teach pull to understand @{push} as a refspec.

[dscho]

And what about git diff origin/@{push}, i.e. comparing to a remote-tracking branch of the same name as the current branch?

[phil-blain]

I’m not sure I understand that last bit though.

git diff @{push}

already works (provided the two config settings I mention above are used) and compares to the current push target... but maybe you meant comparing to branch with the same name on a remote that is not the configured pushRemote for the current branch?

[dscho]

My @{push} does not point to origin.

[victorphoenix3]

Hi @dscho ! I would like to work on this as my microproject for GSOC. As a new contributor, I am not very familiar with the codebase. It would be great if you could provide additional details or point me to any relevant functions/files to start at.

[dscho]

Hi @victorphoenix3!

I am actually not sure that this would make for a fine microproject because it has too much potential to be bogged down in philosophical discussions. For one, not even I am sure how this functionality's user interface should look like.

Having said that, the code in question should probably live around the same location where @{upstream} is handled: https://github.com/git/git/blob/v2.35.1/object-name.c#L829.