4 ms·

> hint, if you ever type "pull" you are doing it wrong Genuine question: what's wrong with executing 'git pull' on a branch you haven't changed locally?

leni536 11y ago
It could be rebased upstream. While it's a really bad practice, it could happen.
- lifebeyondfife 11y ago
  Ah ok, I think I understand the concern. So 'git fetch' and 'git merge' explicitly will stop an upstream rebase from making destructive changes to the history of your local branch(?) As you say it's bad practice and shouldn't happen. I use gitlab and GitHub where branches can be protected to only allow merges via their web interfaces.
  - leni536 11y ago
    I don't think git pull would ever destroy your history (AFAIK it's exactly the same as a fetch+merge), at worst you end up in a merge conflict, but it's easily revertable. However after a git fetch and a git log you can see beforehand if there is anything nasty going on.
  - sytse 11y ago
    GitLab CEO here, in GitLab you can protect branches to not be rebased at all (web or command line), see https://about.gitlab.com/2014/11/26/keeping-your-code-protected/ https://about.gitlab.com/2014/11/26/keeping-your-code-protec... I'm not aware that GitHub offers the same functionality.
    - c0wb0yc0d3r 11y ago
      On the page where the ssh finger print is listed, can you list the RSA finger print too? I am not well versed in working with git over ssh, but after following the instructions on GitLab to generate a key, then git would keep showing me the RSA finger print which doesn't match the one provided on the website. After looking around a bit, it looks like the one listed is ECDSA. tl;dr: It was late. Finger prints didn't match. Only logical assumption was NSA. :P (Not really, obviously, but the finger prints could be more clear.)
      - sytse 11y ago
        Thanks, fixed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/2493f208743b079806e29e2ef7887dd87c3c9d81 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/2493f208...
        sytse 11y ago
        Also, we added all other keys: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/79bdb63ff3184be6bf23788d3f2d7a55349f53d9 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/79bdb63f...
    - gcb0 11y ago
      but you still damage your local copy and it's a pain to clean up, specially if you had local changes/commits
      - sytse 11y ago
        The idea is not to have upstream rebases so you can't pull them by accident.
ehotinger 11y ago
Nothing unless you're rebasing upstream, but I think the point he was trying to make was that you should always run `git fetch` and then `merge` from there (again, there are some situations where the pull is fine IMHO).
- lifebeyondfife 11y ago
  Beat me to it.
- c0wb0yc0d3r 11y ago
  git pull just runs git fetch then git merge. At least that is what the docs say: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull http://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull What am I missing?
  - gcb0 11y ago
    but it tries to be smart about how to merge. and usually it's not what you want. i consider it the clippy of linus. if you run merge/rebase/etc on its own, it will tell and ask you about anything out of the ordinary and then there's no surprise. again, it's all about avoiding errors on the rare cases because you developed dangerous finger memory.
- Kiro 11y ago
  Why?
gcb0 11y ago
nothing. but tomorrow, when you are used to type git pull, you will run it on a branch with changes and you have no idea if it will rebase, merge, fast forward... and /then/ you will see the problem. (and open yet another stackoverflow question on how to undo the last merge :)

leni536 11y ago

It could be rebased upstream. While it's a really bad practice, it could happen.

lifebeyondfife 11y ago
Ah ok, I think I understand the concern. So 'git fetch' and 'git merge' explicitly will stop an upstream rebase from making destructive changes to the history of your local branch(?) As you say it's bad practice and shouldn't happen. I use gitlab and GitHub where branches can be protected to only allow merges via their web interfaces.
- leni536 11y ago
  I don't think git pull would ever destroy your history (AFAIK it's exactly the same as a fetch+merge), at worst you end up in a merge conflict, but it's easily revertable. However after a git fetch and a git log you can see beforehand if there is anything nasty going on.
- sytse 11y ago
  GitLab CEO here, in GitLab you can protect branches to not be rebased at all (web or command line), see https://about.gitlab.com/2014/11/26/keeping-your-code-protected/ https://about.gitlab.com/2014/11/26/keeping-your-code-protec... I'm not aware that GitHub offers the same functionality.
  - c0wb0yc0d3r 11y ago
    On the page where the ssh finger print is listed, can you list the RSA finger print too? I am not well versed in working with git over ssh, but after following the instructions on GitLab to generate a key, then git would keep showing me the RSA finger print which doesn't match the one provided on the website. After looking around a bit, it looks like the one listed is ECDSA. tl;dr: It was late. Finger prints didn't match. Only logical assumption was NSA. :P (Not really, obviously, but the finger prints could be more clear.)
    - sytse 11y ago
      Thanks, fixed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/2493f208743b079806e29e2ef7887dd87c3c9d81 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/2493f208...
      - sytse 11y ago
        Also, we added all other keys: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/79bdb63ff3184be6bf23788d3f2d7a55349f53d9 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/79bdb63f...
  - gcb0 11y ago
    but you still damage your local copy and it's a pain to clean up, specially if you had local changes/commits
    - sytse 11y ago
      The idea is not to have upstream rebases so you can't pull them by accident.

ehotinger 11y ago

Nothing unless you're rebasing upstream, but I think the point he was trying to make was that you should always run `git fetch` and then `merge` from there (again, there are some situations where the pull is fine IMHO).

lifebeyondfife 11y ago
Beat me to it.
c0wb0yc0d3r 11y ago
git pull just runs git fetch then git merge. At least that is what the docs say: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull http://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull What am I missing?
- gcb0 11y ago
  but it tries to be smart about how to merge. and usually it's not what you want. i consider it the clippy of linus. if you run merge/rebase/etc on its own, it will tell and ask you about anything out of the ordinary and then there's no surprise. again, it's all about avoiding errors on the rare cases because you developed dangerous finger memory.
Kiro 11y ago
Why?

gcb0 11y ago

nothing. but tomorrow, when you are used to type git pull, you will run it on a branch with changes and you have no idea if it will rebase, merge, fast forward... and /then/ you will see the problem. (and open yet another stackoverflow question on how to undo the last merge :)